The morning started with a tour of the garden. The students all tasted a variety of plants including: French Tarragon, Thyme, Mint, Nasturtium, Spearmint, Lemon Balm, Chocolate Mint, Asparagus, Viola Flower, and Begonia Flower. We learned that Stinging Nettle is a superfood, Lemon Balm will ward of mosquitoes, and the Yarrow plant once helped soldiers stop their bleeding wounds.
Next we went up to the rooftop observatory to watch the honey bees at work. We learned that a Queen Bee can lay 1500 eggs in a single summer day and that a bee will fly up to 3km in one direction to find food and still make it back to the hive in time for bed. While up on the roof, we got to dig our spoons right into a fresh, sticky honeycomb and savor the sweet honey in its purest form. What a treat that was!
When we returned to the garden, we visited their worm compost. We were given a mini compost in a bottle to bring back to the school so that we can show the rest of the students how the worms will mess up and turn the tidy layers of soil as they digest the food scraps and make new castings. We were also each given a sunflower seed in a pot to take home and transplant into our own gardens.
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There are so many flowers and plants in Jackson's Culinary Garden that each plant needs a sign post. We were so excited to find out that we got to help them paint new posts for this year's plants. While we were busy planting we could smell the wonderful aroma coming from the clay oven. It was coming from our very own Chef Andrew who was busy preparing fresh pizzas for us to top off with our individually selected herbs and flowers. What's that you say? Flowers on a pizza? YES! They were so tasty we just had to make an extra one to take back to school especially for Mr. Wilson. We washed our pizzas down with lots of fresh mint ice tea and then boarded the bus to head back to school.
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| Mr. Wilson's Edible Garden Pizza |
It was a field trip that we won't soon forget!
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