PPS Cooks+Gardens

Thrilled to report that JW Cooks+Gardens students made paratha with garden greens and radish raita to go along with cilantro chutney and red lentil dal in today’s after-school program. Chef Michelle Fuerst welcomed Gita Bakshi as guest demonstrator for the afternoon. JW Edible Gardens greens included Swiss chard, mint and spinach. Thanks to all our parent volunteers who assist and to McCaffrey’s Food Markets and Church & Dwight Employee Giving Fund for making this sense-sational (and delicious) learning possible.

JW Cooks+Gardens students watered the Edible Gardens, laid in red-painted rocks as decoys in the strawberry beds (will they trick the hungry birds?), then harvested salad – and ate it together! Note the interior courtyard, an almost blank canvas with a mix of sun and shade, needing only a water spigot to bring forth abundance. What could you imagine there? A pergola with grapes growing? Watch this space for the progress! With gratitude and thanks to McCaffrey’s Food Markets and Church & Dwight Employee Giving Fund for making it happen.

Fantastic news to report from JW Middle School: Nyrie Janho’s food science course is so popular that Priscilla Hayes’ accompanying garden lessons have necessitated an expansion of the edible gardens! Newly installed rain barrels will help with watering needs for the plantings until we can get an outdoor spigot installed there. Under the direction of Priscilla and Janet Gaudino, 8th-grade science teacher and advisor, students in JW Cooks + Gardens planted blueberries in the lovely (and little-used) courtyard yesterday, after they took a tasting tour of herbs and greens growing in the established gardens next to the playing fields. We are grateful to McCaffrey’s Food Markets and to Church & Dwight Employee Giving Fund for their generous support of this vital program!