APS School Garden Meetup Tours Arlington Career Center Native Plant Garden and Greenhouse

By Mary Van Dyke

Today the APS School Garden Meetup group is at the Arlington Career Center.

Arlington Career Center

Our host is Joan Horwitt, volunteer with the Program for Employment Preparedness (PEP) and President of Reevesland Learning Center. This afternoon’s tour is introduced by Margaret Chung, Principal at the Career Center. Ms Chung highlights the collaborative teaching and integrative experiential learning practiced at the Career Center, and their new initiatives in Sustainable Technologies and Arlington Tech.

New Native Plant Garden at Career Center

PEP teacher, Rosemary Donaldson, shows us the work in progress on a new native plant garden to encourage more Monarch butterflies and other pollinators to feed on and enjoy the habitat. Students from the Sustainable Technology program are constructing the garden fence. PEP students and volunteers planted the garden, including Milkweeds for Monarch caterpillar food and nectar, as well as a selection of native plants to provide flowers with nectar and pollen from spring through to fall. There are now over 100 native plants here. This will be a wonderful showcase for the Plant NOVA Natives campaign. This year, the garden will be graced by many insect pollinators.

Then we go round to the Career Center's Greenhouse.  

Arlington Career Center Greenhouse

Joan Horwitt, volunteers each week to help PEP students practice life skills including horticulture. The Greenhouse is a great resource to the community. Margaret Chung, as principal of the Career Center, is very supportive of re-energizing use of the Greenhouse. Other staff, including Robert Johnson, Michael Cruse, Rosemary Donaldson and many others, have helped too, creating an environment for integrative learning and partnerships.

In the Greenhouse

You can see many examples of the students’ work in the Greenhouse. There’s a tank of Grasses for the Masses being grown for the Chesapeake Bay. In another area a new tank is being built for aquaponics: rearing Tilapia fish and growing greens.

Aquaponics Tanks in Construction

Here are some sweet potatoes slips that students are beginning to sprout,

Growing Sweet Potato Slips

and some Begonias that the students have started propagating from cuttings.

Begonia Cuttings

One of the special projects initiated by Joan, is to grow micro-green sprouts. The students are growing different kinds of radish sprouts, daikon sprouts and pea sprouts. They are very tasty, and freshly grown.  The students are marketing the sprouts they grow to Bistro 360. This is one example of a business employer  that the students are working with.

Joan Horwitt Highlighting Micro-Geen Sprouts

Career Center Students with Micro-Greens

Writing a Label and Reusing a Yogurt Pot

Another project that the Career Center students are working on, in partnership with the Reevesland Learning Center, is to make compost bins and inspire others to compost. The compost bins are fairly small and made of timber with a hardware cloth lining. That way the bins keep vermin out, and the compost in. Students fill the bins with a mixture of food scraps from the Culinary Arts Students program and autumn leaves. This gives a good mixture of "greens and browns" (nitrogen- and carbon-materials). The compost mixture decomposes quite fast and at fairly high heat. Even on this cool spring day, the ambient temperature in the greenhouse is 85°, and the compost is probably around 120°. The finished compost is sieved to be fine. The students use their school-made compost and Promix to grow the micro-greens and find their own compost is already a great growing medium!

Compost Bin Designed and Built by Sustainable Technology Students

Compost

Compost Bin

The APS Superintendent is an "early adopter" of a compost bin made by the Sustainable Technology students. I’ve ordered two bins for Jamestown Elementary School. Contact Joan Horwitt or Robert Johnson (robert.johnson@apsva.us) to order up a compost bin. The compost bins cost $65 each. Please order yours now so the students can program in to make one for you too!

Like to join the APS School Garden Meetup googlegroup, and receive our occasional e-newsletter? If so, please send an email to growinggreenschools@gmail.com.

Next APS School Garden Meetups:

• Monday April 4, 4- 5 PM, place to be confirmed
• Monday May 8, 4- 5 PM at Carlin Springs Elementary School

LINK to March e-newsletter The ComPOST at: http://eepurl.com/bS17o

APS School Garden Meetups are an initiative of the Superintendent’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability. Author Mary Van Dyke serves on the APS Superintendent's Advisory Committee on Sustainability, and helps organize the APS School Garden Meetups.