SUMMIT 2021—Supporting the Whole Child using Farm to Early Care and Education with Wendy Palmer

By Yaza Sarieh 

Yaza Sarieh is a contractor for Farm to School at Georgia Organics and a Childhood Health and Wellness intern at the Georgia Department of Public Health.

Sign up today for the eighth annual Georgia Farm to School and Early Care and Education Summit, held virtually from Tuesday, April 27 through Saturday, May 1. The Summit features dynamic education sessions highlighting gardening, cooking with kids, local procurement, curriculum integration, and more! This event is hosted by Georgia Organics and the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning.

SIGN UP FOR SUMMIT TODAY!

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“In Farm to School and ECE, I love the shift that is taking place to incorporate the whole child. Rather than thinking that food is just fuel, food is starting to be used in other components of childhood wellness such as mental and emotional health or physical health.”   

Farm to ECE initiatives are a wonderful tool to educate children about the complexities of life, whether it is the different dynamics at play when procuring local foods, the importance of health and well-being, or the value of our environment. Wendy Palmer, a registered dietitian and certified health education specialist, has found ways to weave these different topics into garden and nutrition education.  

One of Wendy’s Farm to ECE favorite strategies is using the garden to promote positive mental health outcomes. She encourages educators to utilize the garden not only to teach children about where food comes from and how it grows, but also to show students unique coping or stress-reducing mechanisms.  

Wendy mentioned, “Exercise is a great way to relieve stress and cope, but there are other ways that we can encourage good mental health strategies early on as well. We can teach children to meditate in the garden, to care for plants or to harvest healthy foods for them and their families, activities that will nourish a sense of accomplishment. FTECE gives us the opportunity to engage with students in some many different ways!” 

Wendy is thrilled to be participating in this year’s Summit, to share knowledge as well as to learn from the wide variety of expertise present. During her session, Wendy will be giving us insight into the ways that you can utilize Farm to School to support holistic childhood development -- physically, emotionally and academically. 

SUMMIT 2021—Bee Smart. Eat Smart: Meet Dr. Caree Cotwright

By Yaza Sarieh 

Yaza Sarieh is a contractor for Farm to School at Georgia Organics and a Childhood Health and Wellness intern at the Georgia Department of Public Health.

Sign up today for the eighth annual Georgia Farm to School and Early Care and Education Summit, held virtually from Tuesday, April 27 through Saturday, May 1. The Summit features dynamic education sessions highlighting gardening, cooking with kids, local procurement, curriculum integration, and more! This event is hosted by Georgia Organics and the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning.

SIGN UP FOR SUMMIT TODAY!

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“We have a strong Farm to School and ECE Alliance and Coalition in Georgia, and I am looking forward to learning from the expertise of the diverse partners and connecting with them.” 

Partnerships make Georgia Farm to ECE stronger, something Dr. Caree Cotwright has experienced firsthand. A professor in the UGA Obesity Prevention lab, Dr. Cotwright, has been working with the State Botanical Garden in Athens, Georgia to use Farm to Early Care and Education as a strategy for preventing childhood obesity. This partnership led to a summer pilot program at the State Botanical Gardens called “Bee Smart, Eat Smart” that allowed UGA to analyze the implementation of comprehensive garden curricula in Early Care education.  

While collaborating on this project, Dr. Cotwright noticed the benefits of using gardens as a holistic place to nurture student’s learning, development, and lifestyle choices. She noted: 

 “There was so much learning going on in the garden! I love that Farm to ECE connects students with where food comes from. When these students develop basic knowledge and love of food, nutrition, and the environment early on, they are taught to be mindful and have an appreciation of the whole spectrum that will serve them well in the future.”  

During Summit, Dr. Cotwright and her students will be hosting a virtual tour of the State Botanical Gardens where they tested their Farm to ECE garden curricula. Then, they will provide best practices for creating partnerships and offer suggestions for funding mechanisms and garden curriculum development that enhances Farm to Early Care and Education.  

Visit our website to learn more and register for this year’s Summit using this link! 

Announcing Farm to School Month 2021: 'Livin’ La Vida Okra!' Starts this Summer in Your School’s Garden

By Kimberly Koogler and Yaza Sarieh 

Kimberly Koogler is the Farm to School Coordinator at Georgia Organics. Yaza Sarieh is a Farm to School Contractor with Georgia Organics, as well as a Child Health and Wellness Intern with the Georgia Department of Public Health.

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For more guidance that will include more visual aids for all the visual learners out there and will also be more entertaining, please save the date for our upcoming virtual Good Food for Thought event, all about getting ready for Livin’ la Vida Okra on Wednesday, June 23, 2021 at 3:00 pm. This fun AND practical event will include a presentation on how to plant your okra seeds with students, as well as a special on-site demonstration. So, mark your calendars, and we’ll all plant okra together this Summer, and then we will celebrate a bountiful okra harvest together during October Farm to School Month! 

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We are celebrating okra this October for National Farm to School Month, but preparations will begin long before October! If you want your school garden to be ready with a bountiful okra harvest, you should plant your okra before you come back for school in the Fall. Okra takes a few months to get to the point where it is producing vigorously, but once there, it will give and give until the first frost. For the most bountiful okra harvest, we recommend planting your okra either before school gets out in May or during the summer break, in June or July.  

This means that someone will need to take care of it while school is not in session! School gardens are often neglected during the summer, but with a little help from the school community, they can survive and even thrive. With advance planning, you can ensure your okra crop and any other summer vegetables growing in the garden are flourishing and in abundant supply when school starts back up again.  

From Mis Pequenos Angeles, photo credit: Linden Tree Photography

How to recruit and manage help from your school community: 

• About a month before school gets out for the summer, advertise the need for summer school garden helpers through announcements, newsletters, e-mail communications, and social media.  

• Clearly communicate your goals for the garden: Let folks know what the goals are--one being thriving okra plants--and shout it from the rooftops that we’ll be Livin’ La Vida Okra this Fall!  

• Engage students in virtual outreach efforts, encouraging them to share with their families and on social media. This will not only help spread the word but will also increase students’ sense of ownership of the school garden. 

• Check-in with educators who may be hosting summer school sessions or summer camps at the school to coordinate schedules and/or cross collaborate. 

• Use Calendly (https://calendly.com/), Sign Up Genius (https://www.signupgenius.com/), Google Calendar, or another online group scheduling tool and ask volunteers to commit to one or two weeks of summer garden maintenance.  

Helpful hints: Make sure you understand your school district’s policies regarding volunteers and summer programming to ensure rules and regulations are followed (e.g., filing waivers for volunteers, getting access to school grounds, water, etc.).  

Check out this Collective School Garden Network “Building a School Garden Support Network” resource

From My Little Geniuses, photo credit: Linden Tree Photography

Once you have recruited summer garden helpers, you’ll need to provide some guidance and simple instructions:

• Outline a plan for weekly maintenance tasks, such as watering, weeding, harvesting, etc. 

• If you haven’t already done so, add planting okra to the to-do list! Be sure to include clear instructions on where to plant the okra seeds. 

• Create a simple maintenance calendar that is accessible to all your garden helpers and populate it with tasks to be done on a weekly basis.  

• Include optional tasks that would be nice to have done but are not critical for garden survival as extra options to keep your garden lovers happy and busy.  

• Post your maintenance calendar in the garden and online. Use Google Calendar or whatever your school’s preferred shared calendar is. Make sure the sharing settings are open to all garden helpers, and share the calendar with all garden helpers on social media, through newsletters, and email. 

Courtesy of Kimberly Koogler

Guidance on Planting and Caring for Okra

When?  

Okra thrives in the heat and full sun and should be planted when the days become consistently warm. In Georgia, the ideal time is late April through July.  

Which okra varieties should you plant?  

Spineless varieties will be kinder to everyone’s skin. Otherwise, okra thrives in our climate, so you can’t go wrong with any variety! Southern Exposure Seed Exchange has 18 different varieties to choose from. You can also wait until the sign-up for Livin’ La Vida Okra goes live in June. The first 300 people who sign up will be mailed a resource packet, which will include two okra seed packets. 

How?  

Okra can be direct-seeded or transplanted, but its root system prefers to be direct-seeded. Sow seeds ¾ to 1 inch deep, spaced approximately 18 inches apart, in rows 5 to 6 feet apart. If transplanting, start seeds in trays or pots 2-3 weeks before planting outside. 

Courtesy of Kimberly Koogler

Then what?  

Keep the area around your okra plants free of weeds, especially while the plants are still young. After pulling weeds, you can apply a thick layer of mulch to prevent any more weeds from growing. When the seedlings are a few inches tall, thin them out so that they are at least 18 inches apart. Okra plants can grow to be quite large, so it’s important to give them ample space to branch out and flourish.  

Keep your okra plants well-watered, especially while they are flowering and producing pods.  

How to Harvest Okra 

The sooner you plant your okra this Summer, the sooner you’ll start harvesting it, and once your plants start putting out pods, you need to stay on top of harvesting!  

You can use a knife or scissors to cut the okra pods from the plant (students should be careful!), or you can gently snap the stem of the okra pod from the plant. Harvest while the pods are still tender. Generally, this means at 2 to 3 inches; however, if it has been rainy (and warm), the pods will grow faster and can be longer yet still tender. Try to harvest daily, or at least every other day, in order to harvest while pods are still tender and to encourage the plant to keep producing pods.  

Okra pods become woody if they’re left on the plant for too many days. Remove the woody pods and save them for another use or toss them into the compost. Leave the tiny pods to grow a little longer and gain more flavor. 

Be sure to share the summer garden harvest! 

Show appreciation to volunteers by allowing them to take home some of the harvested produce. Sending gratitude and giving due credit to participants can create long-term investment in your gardening projects and generate a greater sense of community.  

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For more guidance that will include more visual aids for all the visual learners out there and will also be more entertaining, please save the date for our upcoming virtual Good Food for Thought event, all about getting ready for Livin’ la Vida Okra on Wednesday, June 23, 2021 at 3:00 pm. This fun AND practical event will include a presentation on how to plant your okra seeds with students, as well as a special on-site demonstration. So, mark your calendars, and we’ll all plant okra together this Summer, and then we will celebrate a bountiful okra harvest together during October Farm to School Month! 

SUMMIT 2021—Using Farm to Early Care and Education to Move, Play, and Learn with Ms. Ladybug

By Yaza Sarieh  

Yaza Sarieh is a contractor for Farm to School at Georgia Organics and a Childhood Health and Wellness intern at the Georgia Department of Public Health.

Sign up today for the eighth annual Georgia Farm to School and Early Care and Education Summit, held virtually from Tuesday, April 27 through Saturday, May 1. The Summit features dynamic education sessions highlighting gardening, cooking with kids, local procurement, curriculum integration, and more! This event is hosted by Georgia Organics and the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning.

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Photos courtesy of Ms. Ladybug

“I am so excited to see all of the wonderful human beings at Summit who make such an impact in Georgia F2ECE. When you embrace F2ECE as part of your mission, it opens lots of possibilities and safe, entertaining, healthy doors with loads of positive outcomes for children.”  

Ms. Ladybug is the embodiment of her name—she is a garden-warrior and an exuberant advocate for F2ECE as a means of teaching children about the world around them.

Her tried-and-true methods of engaging with children focus on elevating children’s voices first, then using a silly, fun framework to get them excited about nature and the garden.

For example, to inspire students to eat fruits and vegetables, she gets them thinking by taking them outside to watch what worms eat. She asks questions like, ‘Do the worms like cheese? Or do they really like kale and watermelon?’ Ultimately, she has found that when students connect with nature and nutritious foods through these types of observations, they aspire to eat more nutritious foods too!  

Photos courtesy of Ms. Ladybug

In addition, F2ECE has been a way for Ms. Ladybug to contextualize complex societal issues while promoting diversity and equity.

Photos courtesy of Ms. Ladybug

When the students are in the garden, Ms. Ladybug prompts them to notice individual plant needs and how some plants differ from others. This activity allows students to visualize equity. She invites the students to celebrate these differences and recognize the beauty and purpose that each plant gives to its ecosystem.

Ms. Ladybug believes that F2ECE not only provides students with a way to understand the world but that these meaningful connections teach them to care for their own and each other’s well-being.   

During Ms. Ladybug’s Summit session, she will present creative and captivating ways in which you can incorporate simple F2ECE lessons into your daily activities.  

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Sign up today for the eighth annual Georgia Farm to School and Early Care and Education Summit, held virtually from Tuesday, April 27 through Saturday, May 1. The Summit features dynamic education sessions highlighting gardening, cooking with kids, local procurement, curriculum integration, and more! This event is hosted by Georgia Organics and the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning.

SUMMIT 2021—Early Care & Education Provider Wande Okunoren-Meadows: “Farm to ECE is Beneficial for the Whole Child”

Photo courtesy of Little Ones Learning Center, credit: Linden Tree Photography.

By Yaza Sarieh 

Yaza Sarieh is a contractor for Farm to School at Georgia Organics and a Childhood Health and Wellness intern at the Georgia Department of Public Health. To learn more about Georgia Organics, visit www.georgiaorganics.org and follow us on Instagram @GeorgiaOrganics, Twitter @GeorgiaOrganics, and at www.Facebook.com/GeorgiaOrganics.  

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“There is no right or wrong answer to Farm to School/ECE—as long as you’re doing something, you’re doing the right thing.”  

Wande Okunoren-Meadows is the director and educator at Little Ones Learning Center in Forest Park, where she utilizes Farm to Early Care and Education (ECE) practices to support the development of the whole child.

Photo courtesy of Little Ones Learning Center, credit: Linden Tree Photography.

Especially amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, Wande believes Farm to ECE has been crucial for her students' health and well-being by boosting their immune systems, helping their mental health, and continuing their love of nutrition and environmental education.  

One of the components of Farm to ECE that Wande appreciates the most is how it creates a foundation for life-long respect and value of nature among her students:  

“Farm to ECE is holistic, inclusive, and incorporates everything a child needs for their development that you may never have thought of before. I love seeing our students engage with nature on a daily basis in the garden, where they watch life grow and develop a sense of environmental responsibility. If our children love and value nature as much as their Nikes, then we are winning.” 

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Wande will be one of the speakers at this year’s Summit, where she will discuss ways Farm to ECE can address inequities and communal needs while also providing us with tips for Farm to ECE best practices in the classroom. Visit our website to learn more and don’t forget to register! 

Photo courtesy of Little Ones Learning Center, credit: Linden Tree Photography.