Super Salad Eaters

Vestal students have been enjoying garden fresh salads to celebrate the end of the school year. It was a unique experience for students and teachers to eat fresh lettuce that they grew and prepared themselves. Many of our students are super salad eaters, asking for second and third helpings of fresh healthy veggies.



Our salads included all six parts of the plant: seeds, roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruit. Take a look at the recipe below:

Six Plant Part Salad (courtesy of OSU Nutrition Extension)
Serves 4

Salad:
1 Head of Romaine Lettuce
1 Bunch of Broccoli
1 Apple
1 Carrot
2 Ribs of Celery
1/4 cup Sunflower Seeds

Dressing:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons honey
1 Tablespoon dijon mustard

Direcitons: Wash and chop all vegetables into bite size pieces. Mix dressing in a small jar or container. Toss all vegetables and dressing in a large bowl. Sprinkle with sunflower seeds. Enjoy!

Garden Get Together This Saturday!

Our final event of the school year is our
Garden Get Together this Saturday June 11th from 10 am- 12 pm.
Enjoy time in the garden and meet Vestal families and community gardeners.
There will be an art project for kids and you may bring a snack to share.
We hope to see you there!

Thank you to the fantastic community gardeners who helped out at the work party last Saturday. We spread the remaining wood chips, cleared out the unofficial compost pile, and weeded the native plant hedgerow. We could not have accomplished this without your hard work and dedication to the garden. Thanks again!

Gardening Helps Our Students to Grow

Upstream Public Health and Farm to School just released a new study showing that garden-based education boosts academic achievement and test scores. You can take a look at the report here.

The Vestal Community Gardens provides students with hands-on outdoor learning opportunities. Over the past year we have seen how working outside of the traditional classroom and applying classroom concepts to real life projects has helped to improved Vestal students' academic and personal success. We are so excited that there is now official research to back-up the positive changes we see in our students.

June Events

We invite you to enjoy what the garden has to offer Vestal School. We encourage everyone to be a part of the garden and attending one of our June events is a great way to start.

Garden Work Party- Saturday June 4^th 10 am- 12 pm

We will be getting the garden ready for the summer months.

No gardening experience needed. We will supply tools and snacks.

Garden Get Together-

SaturdayJune 11^th 10 am- 12 pm

Enjoy time in the garden and meet Vestal families and community

gardeners. There will be an art project for kids and you may bring a

snack to share.

Questions? Contact Garden Coordinator Laura Benjamin at laurabenjamin.vestal@gmail.com or 503-916-6437.

Hooray for the Sun!

Thank you to all the wonderful Vestal parents and students who helped out at our Big Spring Planting this past Saturday April 30th. We painted our two new picnic benches, transplanted strawberries, and planted over 20 new plant starts. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was so nice to be outside spending time in the garden.

We are planning a June work party as our last garden event of the school year. Keep a look out for details to come soon.

Big Spring Planting

Mark your calendars! The Vestal Community Garden's BIG SPRING PLANTING is Saturday April 30th from 10 am- 12 pm. We will be planting a variety of seeds and plant starts. There will be seeds for community gardeners and volunteers to take home. No gardening experience required. We will supply tools and snacks. We hope to see you there!

Earth Day

This Friday April 23 is Earth Day! Founded in 1970, Earth Day is a day intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for our natural environment. This coming weekend there are a variety of ways to get involved in Earth Day. Almost all the events are free and family friendly. Take a look here and here for lists of Portland area Earth Day festivities.