How Does Your Garden Grow?

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Volume 10, Issue 8

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program A Word About How Does Your Garden Grow? Lessons: A seed or small plant can Fairy tales, children’s rhymes, early writings and even a provide interdisciplinary lessons in life Supreme Court case have included fruits and vegetables. As science, nutrition, journalism and healthy explorers discovered new plants, they brought back drawings, living. Fruits and vegetables inspire specimens and seeds. Today, these once-exotic edibles are artists, chefs and community activists. part of our daily lives as we stop at the grocery store, the Level: Low to High coffee shop and nursery. Subjects: Botany, Life Science, Health, English Activities in this guide encourage interdisciplinary lessons Related Activity: Art, Journalism, and family engagement. Students receive lessons in botany, Mathematics, Social Studies, Home nutrition and healthy living as they plan and plant a garden. Economics Examples of involvement in one’s community are found in Washington Post reprints that focus on school and community gardens, Dumbarton Oaks Park and the National Arboretum.

Every section of The Post can be related to this theme. For example, teachers, take students to the STYLE section to read about art. Students create their own plein-air art, photograph subjects or do still life studies inside. Help students to create a show for others to enjoy — and review. From FOOD locate recipes and sales. In LOCAL LIVING find outdoor venues.

e - A reminder to Post program teachers: If you plan to use Replica articles in this guide in the e-Replica format more than three months after their publication date, remember to bookmark them. NIE Online Guide Editor — Carol Lange Art Editor — Carol Porter

Contributing to this guide: Artwork on pages 11 and 12 were contributed by Washington area painters Joele Michaud, Walter Bartman, Luba Sterlikova and Carol Porter, and photographer Bill O’Leary. Illustrative art by the masters have been featured in Washington Post articles.

Available Online All Washington Post NIE guides may be downloaded at www.washpost.com/nie.

Send comments about this guide to: ABOUT THE COVER Margaret Kaplow, Educational Services A Sogetsu freestyle arrangement created by Ikebana artist Jane Red- Manager, [email protected] mond at the National Arboretum Show in 2008. Photograph by U. S. National Arboretum.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

How Does Your Garden Grow? Read About It HortTechnology A new study published in suggests that children Aliki “may be in danger of losing direct contact with the natural Corn Is Maize: The Gift of the Indians environment.” This guide addresses this concern with activities HarperCollins Children’s Books (1996), from seed planting to botanical drawing, from applying math to ages 5-8 garden plots to considering sustainability with a future king. Each The story of corn and the many uses of it is a different approach to a more intimate experience with plants. Creasey, Rosalind Increase Vocabulary and elementary-age children to Blue Potatoes, Orange Tomatoes: English, Science, Health, plants. Read and discuss one of How to Grow a Rainbow Garden Reading these with your students. Sierra Club (2000), ages 7-11 Gardeners have specific tools Can students think of other How to plant and grow a variety of colorful and a specialized vocabulary. books they have enjoyed in which vegetables Reading the articles and doing fruits and vegetables play a the suggested activities in this prominent role? Begin with tales Ehlert, Lois guide will be easier if students such as Jack and the Beanstalk, Eating the Alphabet can identify the tools and use the The Princess and the Pea, Snow Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (1996), terms. “Tools of the Gardener” White (apple) and Cinderella 4 and under is organized as a quiz. It may be (pumpkin). Some may have seen Illustrated fruits and vegetables from A to Z used to assess students’ knowledge Miss Piggy interviewing these before or after introducing the literary fruits and vegetables. Falwell, Cathryn different implements. Older students might enjoy Feast for 10 “A Vocabulary Lesson for being reminded of the role that Houghton Mifflin Co. (1996), ages 5-8 Lawn and Garden Learning” vegetables and fruits played in A family counts its way through shopping accompanies the March 2011 their early literary encounters. and dinner Adrian Higgins’ article “Getting Teachers may also review the the vegetable garden ready.” books from the point of view of Lin, Grace Joel M. Lerner compiled the illustrators and artists. What styles The Ugly Vegetables informative entries which are are used? Charlesbridge Publishing (2009), ages 4-8 excerpted from the more extensive While others plant flowers, this mother glossary that was published in Do the Math and daughter plant Chinese vegetables; October 2007 in The Washington Mathematics, Botany, Science, illustrated glossary of vegetables and their Post. These may be introduced Health Chinese characters, soup recipe before reading any of Higgins’ The exercise on page 9 of articles. this guide, “Plot Your Garden,” McMillan, Bruce Teachers could pull terms introduces the steps to planning Eating Fractions from each of the articles or have the garden plot. Students use Scholastic, Inc. (1993), ages 3-9 students make a list of words and graph paper, establish a key, and Food illustrates math concepts, recipes to phrases they do not know as they decide whether to plant in rows practice fractions read the articles. Individually or squares. They think through or in groups, students may find the process so there will be room Williams, Vera definitions that work in this to place plants and to weed, water Cherries and Cherry Pits context. and harvest. Morrow, William & Co., (1991), ages 4-7 Before students complete the A child artist plants cherry pits and nurtures Read About Fruits and Vegetables plot, they must do some research the young tree English, Art, Reading of the growing cycle to decide Seven delightful books are which plants and how many highlighted in the sidebar on this page. They introduce pre-school continued on page 4

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 3 Both are very helpful to visualize How to Grow a Garden how to do the work as both men vegetables to purchase or to grow narrate the process to follow. In www.washingtonpost.com/local/sowing- from seed. Questions could include: what ways does the Higgins’ video growing-and-harvesting-in-a-community- • How far apart should plants be? illustrate his article’s content and garden/2011/03/23/AB0nzMJB_video.html • Which flowers are beneficial to what does it add to the reader’s Sowing, growing and harvesting in a control insects? experience? community garden • Which vegetables are members of Continue to follow Higgins in The The Washington Post’s Adrian Higgins their families most likely to eat? Post and online. His May 4 column preps his community garden plot for the • Which vegetables do they want to focuses on herbal gardening at start of spring. The 5:27 video shows introduce for healthier diets? community plots and in containers. Higgins at work, many tips given. Teachers may also design a In what ways do his columns appeal www.dc-urban-gardeners.com/ math exercise to compare and to a range of readers? DC Urban Gardeners contrast the cost of planting one’s Volunteers to make “greening and growing homegrown tomatoes (cost of Keep an Observation Log projects happen” and to teach how to grow seeds or plants, soil conditioner, Life Science, English, Art plants. Information and links, include water; yield) vs. buying them (cost “Be a Gardener” is provided to composting, school gardens and urban per item or pound; regular and give students a summary of the ecology. organic) in a market. In addition to steps to follow to create a garden cost, what other factors need to be and to give them suggestions for www.monkeysee.com/play/10009-how-to- considered? recording the gardening experience. grow-a-vegetable-garden The observation log could become How to Grow a Vegetable Garden Prepare to Plant a writer’s journal composed of Ed Bruske, a former Washington Post Botany, Life Science, English, observations, quotations from other journalist and president of D.C. Urban Health, Broadcast Journalism, gardeners, selections from science Gardeners, demonstrates in easy-to- Journalism books and research as well as understand videos the tools and steps to Adrian Higgins, The Post’s poetry. The log would be enhanced create an urban garden. Series includes the gardening columnist, covers with illustrations and photographs. introductory video, choosing a site, testing ornamental and edible plants. the soil (explains reasons for testing soil, In “April is not too late to start Consider a Community Garden especially in urban setting), how to plot the a veggie garden,” he addresses Journalism, English, Composition vegetable garden bed and selecting plants. when to begin gardens and what The community garden plot to do. He has a community garden is any piece of land gardened by www.revivevictorygarden.org/ plot in which he works alongside a group of people. In the D.C. Revive the Victory Garden other gardeners, sharing advice metropolitan area there are several Resources include planning a vegetable from experience and his extensive well-established community garden garden, layout of garden and food storage knowledge. plots and the newer one at the If they have not done so, teachers White House. Locate any that are www.dcschoolyardgreening.org/ should cover “A Vocabulary Lesson near your school — perhaps, your D.C. Schoolyard Greening for Lawn and Garden Learning.” school has even begun a community A project of the D.C. Environmental “Getting the vegetable garden garden. Education Consortium. Information, ready” is an example of a process In “Season of disappointment” projects and D.C. School Garden Week essay. Higgins explains each of Larissa Roso covers the story of (Oct. 10-15, 2011). the steps needed to produce a a community garden that faces www.washingtonyouthgarden.org/ flourishing vegetable garden. He closing temporarily, and, perhaps, Washington Youth Garden also makes the case for a border for good. Read and discuss the first At the U.S. National Arboretum, a year- of herbs and the beneficial role of page of the story and answer the round environmental science and food flowers. questions with students. education program since 1971. SPROUT Use the videos by Higgins and Ed program for D.C. metropolitan region Bruske (see How to Grow a Garden sidebar) to enhance the articles. continued on page 5

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 4 problems raised in Montgomery For Your Benefit County? The second page is an activity If your school does not have a www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/clearing/ that gets students to think like vegetable garden, would you want agri_prod_inus.xml reporters and readers. What else one? Debate the pro and con of the Bringing Agricultural Products do readers want to know? Who issue. Students could write letters Into the United States should be interviewed and what to the principal or to the editor U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources should be researched to get of the student newspaper with explains why inspectors at international the answers? Students are provided their positions. These could be airports, border crossings and seaports may information and quotations in order illustrated. take food, plants and souvenirs from you. to complete the article. These are not given in the order used by Roso. Design a Healthy Sandwich www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/nop If students have not studied Health, Home Economics, English National Organic Program attribution, review the handling Give students “Building a Program administers national production, of Kemp’s quotation and read sandwich that’s better for you,” handling and labeling standards other Washington Post articles to a HEALTH Consumer Reports find examples of the attribution Insights feature. What credentials www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/ of long and short quotations does the author have? The use of usdahome?navid=ORGANIC_ and paraphrases. The source of boldface and larger typeface lets CERTIFICATIO information should be clear and the reader know the main ideas. USDA Organic Certification accurately presented. What are the four main points Links to all aspects of the standards, about healthy sandwiches? What production, marketing and labeling Fight for School Gardens are the recommended vegetables for Health, Journalism, Debate, sandwiches? www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/ Community Involvement “Build Your Own Healthy artsandliving/foodanddining/ Michael Birnbaum reports in Sandwich” applies the concepts. features/2010/farmers-markets/index.html “Frustration over school gardens Students create a healthy sandwich The Washington Post 2010 Roundup takes root” on some Montgomery that they would enjoy making, of Farmers Markets County parents’ attempt to establish especially if they grow some of the This interactive map gives the locations of a vegetable garden at their local ingredients. farmers markets in Maryland, Virginia and school. Questions for discussion Two types of writing assignments D.C. Another feature, allows you to locate could include: can be given. To give students markets by lists. Check in your area to see • Why do parents want to establish practice in step-by-step, process if they have returned. a vegetable garden at the school? writing, have them write recipes • What objections do Montgomery for the sandwich: name, a list of County school administrators ingredients and steps to follow. have? To give students practice in • Are there any examples of informative narration, they would gardens at MCPS schools? be asked to write a short essay • To what extent have area school similar to “Building a sandwich systems embraced vegetable that’s better for you.” gardens on school grounds? • What is a compost pile? Make an Outline Have students do additional English reading on the D.C. Healthy “Building a sandwich that’s better Schools Act. What provisions are for you” can easily be used to included in this program? practice outlining skills. Each of the If your school has a vegetable four main points has at least two garden, who and how is it subpoints. Students learn useful maintained? Has your school encountered any of the potential continued on page 6

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 5 Add the dandelion flower to a salad Hodge Podge to add color and antioxidants? information and review the outline If time allows, students could be www.communitygarden.org/ format. assigned other weeds to research. American Community Gardening Association Are any other plants that we Non-profit to encourage beautifying Eat Weeds consider weeds edible? [Possible neighborhoods, producing nutritious food, Botany, Science, Health, Home answers: Japanese knotweed, and conserving resources in Canada and Economics, Journalism purlsane, cattails, burdock, chicory] the U.S. The Post’s informational graphics Have nutritional or medicinal value? artist and illustrator Patterson Clark www.gardenmosaics.cornell.edu/ gives a different perspective on Find Foods, Prices and Recipes Garden Mosaics dandelions. In “Eat your weeds,” Mathematics, Health, Home Youth and elders investigate plants, people an URBAN JUNGLE feature, he Economics, Consumer Education and cultures in gardens; explore this rich combines his talents as an artist, Find foods that are healthy for site: i•m•science with personal stories and researcher and informational you. Instead of visiting grocery forms; Science Pages in English and Spanish graphic designer. stores in the area, use the FOOD are an excellent starting point for research, Patterson exhibits many section and the Sunday grocery well illustrated; Action Projects; Research dimensions of a writer in the text. store inserts. These provide a under the auspices of Cornell University Have students do a close reading survey of produce availability and for the kinds of information he specials. Students could compile a http://www.eurekalert.org/features/ provides from botany, etymology list of fruits and vegetables and the kids/2010-04/aaft-fp032610.php and history, nutrition and medicinal prices at different stores. What is Flower power findings. How has he ordered the the best graph or chart to use to EurekaAlert press release about a protein’s information to grab and to keep the communicate this information? signals reader’s interest? If fruit stands and farmers Take a closer look at the markets are located near to your http://hscweb3.hsc.usf.edu/health/ illustration. Questions for school, their produce and prices now/?p=11541 discussion might include: could be added to the comparison Sun protection program increases • What is “Taraxacum officinale”? and contrast. Also factor in green hat use among 4th graders • What stages of a dandelion’s life considerations such as the carbon A sun protection study in Florida are illustrated? footprint. • What does seeing the tap root Locate recipes using fruits and www.princes-foundation.org/ add? vegetables in the FOOD section. Do The Prince’s Foundation • How do the plant and humans the math to double or triple recipes International projects for building in a more make use of the tap root? or to cut them in half. sustainable way Read and discuss the informational graphics. What is Sketch It www.princescountrysidefund.org.uk/ “melanoma”? What do these terms Art, Photography, Health, Home The Prince’s Countryside Fund communicate: “self-destruct,” Economics Working to secure a sustainable future for “suffered,” “apoptosis” and “cell Two reproducibles, “Sketch It. British agriculture death”? What information is Photograph It. Paint It — en Plein provided? What do the terms Air!” and “Let Artists Inspire You,” “viability” and “concentration” could be used with students to mean? introduce art projects using fruits, Review the SOURCES. What vegetables and plants. do you learn about Patterson’s Plein air Painting preparation to produce the This experience appeals to illustration, text and infograph? students who are eager to get out of Have any students been the classroom and into the fresh air. persuaded to eat dandelion roots? Make a green salad from its leaves? continued on page 7

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 6 9- and 10-year-olds. Authors of the • What is the source of the reporter’s study recommend that students receive information about the Friends of the Look for a landscaped area or vegetable knowledge of plants outdoors rather National Arboretum? garden on school grounds or get than inside. Two ways to achieve this • Is this a new problem for the permission to walk to a nearby park or are the suggested art activities: “Sketch arboretum leadership? vegetable market. Encourage students It. Photograph It. Paint It — en Plein Give students “Conservancy formed to carry a small sketchpad on weekends Air!” and “Let Artists Inspire You.” to rescue Dumbarton Oaks Park” to or when on family trips so they can Students may also go to local parks, read. Who is Edward O. Wilson? Why make drawings or to bring a camera to gardens and open-air markets to conduct is Higgins’ introduction of Wilson capture images for paintings. interviews. “D.C. Gardens and Retreats” appropriate for this article’s focus? Have Still Life and “Virginia and Maryland Gardens students summarize the background The youngest students could be and Markets” give a few of the local of Dumbarton Oaks to establish introduced to botanical painting through venues. Have students brainstorm its importance to history and the a still life exercise. You will need questions they could ask farmers at the community. paper, colored pencils, watercolors or market, shoppers at a fruit stand and • What problems do both parks share? crayons and lemons. Group students people relaxing in a garden. How does [Underfunding and inadequate and give each group a lemon. Students the focus of the Q&A or article influence maintenance] should be asked to touch, smell, feel the questions asked? • Who is coming to the rescue to and describe the lemon. Taste will Encourage students to go with Dumbarton Oaks Park? come later. After students have written adults to one of these places to write • What are plans for Dumbarton? (prose and/or poetry) and shared their reflections, to photograph plants and to sensory experiences, ask students to sketch settings. Dialogue with a Future King place the lemons where you designate Social Studies, Health, Botany, (one alone or grouped to create a still Save It Science life arrangement). Students draw the Botany, Science, English, Community Give students “The future king on lemon(s). Teachers can zest the lemon Involvement the future of food: Prince Charles peel to give students another manner to Two articles are included in this attends Future of Food conference at experience the lemon, make lemonade guide to give examples of community Georgetown” to read. Washington Post and serve lemon cookies or lemon cake. involvement in keeping and maintaining writer Manuel Roig-Franzia has a news Many cookbooks are beautifully green areas for citizen enjoyment peg for this article — a conference at illustrated. Show them to students. and scientific value. They act as a Georgetown University. Provide recipes that use vegetables. springboard for class discussion of other Discuss how Roig-Franzia The recipes may come from the FOOD projects, near to your school and in your characterizes Prince Charles and his section of The Post. Ask students to community that could use community speech. What is meant by “sustainable illustrate one of the recipes. engagement. farming” and “green living” that the The National Gallery of Art in D.C. What happens when budgetary future king promotes? sells The Artist’s Table: A Cookbook by restraints force federal institutions to What was the purpose of the Master Chefs Inspired by Paintings in review all expenses? At the National conference? the National Gallery of Art. Teachers Arboretum they could mean the demise For balance, the article includes the can purchase prints of many of the of 10,000 azalea shrubs and more. views of those who object to Prince works found in the book to use with Read and discuss “Arboretum reverses Charles as spokesman for green living. students. decision to destroy azalea display after What are some specific examples of public backlash.” their side? What are some of the ironies Connect with Plants • How did the public know that the of this trip? Botany, Science, Health, Art, azaleas and the boxwood collection Discuss the ideas that Prince Charles Photography, Journalism, English were in danger? How is informing the and the conference present. ■ An April 2011 press release of the public a role of the press? American Society for Horticultural • Why did the Arboretum target these Science encouraged “horticultural plants? ANSWERS Tools of the Gardener: interventions,” based on a study of • Has an anonymous donor saved the 1. I; 2. C; 3. F; 4. J; 5. E; 6. B; 7. H; 8. D; azalea? To what extent? 9. A; 10. G

Tools of the Gardener Definitions

Match the definition to the picture of the tool it defines. a. Cultivator: Implement for loosening soil while crops are growing, blades narrow enough _____ 1. _____ 2. _____ 3. to be drawn between rows to destroy weeds and aerate the soil

b. Garden fork: Implement with a handle and usually four short, sturdy tines. Used to loosen, lift and turn soil

c. Hoe: Gardening tool with a thin metal blade at a right angle to its long handle, used for weeding and breaking up soil (n); to dig soil or thin out plants (v)

d. Hose: Flexible tube for watering _____ 4. _____5. _____ 6. plants and grass (n); to spray, water or drench with a hose (v)

e. Pitchfork: Implement with handle and longer tines used to move materials such as compost and manure

f. Pruner: Similar to sturdy scissors, handheld shears used to cut branches no larger than 1/2 inch

_____ 7. g. Rake: Tool with prongs to gather material (leaves, for example) or to _____ 8. _____ 9. loosen or smooth the surface of the soil

h. Shovel: Garden tool for breaking and turning the soil, metal end may be a variety of shapes and sizes; the metal blade is fixed to a handle that is usually made of ash or maple

i. Spade: Hand tool with a long handle, _____ 10. with rest on the top of digging end for the foot to rest to push it into the ground; used to loosen ground and break up lumps of soil; metal end may be pointed to facilitate digging

j. Trowel: Garden hand tool with a pointed, scoop-shaped metal blade and a handle; helpful in breaking up soil and planting bulbs and small plants Plot Your Garden Sample 4' x 4' Garden Plot Module Determine where you will place your Use graph paper to design placement of the seed and plants. garden. Find a place that gets at least six hours of sun each day for healthier plants and produce. Also think of how you will water your plants. Once you have your garden area selected, plan your garden on graph paper. After you determine the scale you will be using, draw the boundaries of the plot. Read about plants or check the seed packages or directions that come with plants. How far apart are they to be planted? Be sure not to crowd the plants. If you are planting pole beans or cucumbers, use a fence for support if one is located on the border of your garden plot. By planning before you purchase plants, you will know how many plants you can accommodate. Decide if you are going to grow your plants in rows or in squares. Most gardeners use rows that are easy to hoe between to get rid of weeds. Rows and Seeds This illustration shows how seedlings can Seeds Other gardeners plant in squares of be plantedRows in modular 2-, 3- or 4-foot rows. soil. If you use the latter plan, you will Rows Seeds mark your graph in 2 ft. x 2 ft. or 4 ft. x 4 ft. squares and allow for walking space between squares. Whichever plan you use, you need room to harvest your fruits and vegetables, to weed and to water plants. You can plant slow growing plants with fast growing plants if your garden plot is small. For example, radishes are fast to mature and carrots are slow to grow. They can be sown together or placed in parallel rows. Another possible combination is to alternate rows or blocks of leaf lettuce and tomatoes. If your garden is very productive, you will feed your family — and neighbors. Read the directions on the back of packages. This information tells particulars about each plant. Be a Gardener

One plans and plants a garden as a labor of love, source of exercise and weeks of healthy eating. There are elements of mathematics, botany, chemistry and physical education involved. The gardener is also an observer, detective and journal keeper.

Pull the Weeds Select the Plants Keep an Observation Log Don’t just tug at the tops that are Another option is to purchase plants Create an observation log to record showing above the soil. Dig with a from a nursery or farmers market. the progress of your garden. You may shovel or use a cultivator or hoe to get Someone else has done the work of wish to include photographs or make roots out and turn the soil. Try to get planting seeds and caring for them. You sketches to accompany your written down six to eight inches so the soil is will look for the larger, healthy looking observations. Types of information loose, not hard. plants for your garden. include:

■ Growth of plants Prepare the Soil Care for Your Plants ■ Watering schedule Remove stones and sticks. Level the Water and weed the plants. You have ■ Appearance of blossoms area with a rake. Determine if you will taken time to plan the garden and ■ First fruit and vegetables be planting at ground level or in raised to plant healthy plants. Don’t neglect ■ First harvest beds. In the areas where fruits and them. For plants to survive and to ■ Weekly yield vegetables will be planted, add manure, grow they need water. Most vegetables ■ Manner of dealing with pests. compost or fertilizer. You may also add require one inch of water each week. ■ Be sure to identify those insects gypsum which decreases evaporation You can be eating well for months. that are beneficial to the balance and adds calcium to the soil. of nature.

Start from Seeds If you have patience and time, start your Seed Name ______Date Started ______plants from seeds. You will need small containers, starting soil and a source of light. Do not forget to water them. Light ____ Natural sunlight ____ Fluorescent lighting ____ Hours per day

Gardeners sometimes keep a record of Water ____Amount______Frequency ______the seeds from first planting, through Date Transplanted ______the germination process until the seedlings are large enough to transplant Notes______into the garden plot. One of the reasons ______we know what plants grew in Colonial ______America is the conscientious records kept by landowners. › ______

Sketch It. Photograph It. Paint It — en Plein Air! Go to a farmers market with your sketchpad, pencils or When you create your finished art, you can choose oil markers. Many artists use outdoor gardens, markets, flower or chalk pastels, acrylics or oil paints, watercolor paints or and botanical gardens as their settings. If working outside, watercolor pencils. Even crayons. Or make torn-paper collages. you are plein air painting (from the French term en plein air The camera can also be your medium. meaning “in the open air”). Below are some examples of what can be done. Drawing from life is always best. Before you sketch, use your camera to record your subject, because you may forget Note: Your personal safety is very important. When you are the colors. The light changes every 20 minutes. When you are outside concentrating on your drawing, always have an adult completing your composition, you will have a good reference. with you.

Kyungnim Yun at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, D.C. Sunflowers at Eastern Market, D.C. Mark Gail — The Washington Post Michael Chavez-Robinson — The Washington Post

Antonio Ole in studio, Brussels Karen E. Milbourne Three Geranium Pots, watercolor, Spain Carol Porter Fruit stand, Eastern Market, D.C. Barbara L. Salibury

Franciscan Monastery, D.C. Tom Allen — The Washington Post Sources of inspiration and places to create your artwork

Museums/Sculpture Gardens Check first with museum staff for approval to draw, sketch or paint inside. National, State and Local Parks Check hours. Farmers Markets/Flower Marts Take an easel and stool. Your Room or Studio Set up a comfortable workspace to paint or to compose a still life. U.S. National Arboretum, D.C. Tom Allen — The Washington Post

Let Artists Inspire You Botanical artists use plant life as their subject. They paintings of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and the more combine observation, science and art to create an image. modern works of Vincent van Gogh, Francisco Goya and Find your style by experimenting. Sketch in a museum, Mary Cassatt. paint in your classroom studio or work at home. Select Famous artists from the past and local artists created the fruits, vegetables and flowers to create a still life images below. Some worked hard to be “botanically correct” arrangement. Or buy a print at a gallery to inspire you — while others used their imagination to create an interpretation examples are found in the remains of Pompeii, the oil of the objects. Copy them or let them inspire you.

Leslie Carol Berge, watercolor on paper Still Life with Apples and Peaches Paul Cézanne, oil on canvas

Oysters , 1862 Édouard Manet, oil on canvas Vincent Van Gogh, oil Giuseppe Arcimboldo, oil on panel

Luba Sterlikova, oil pastel

Walter Bartman, oil Joele Michaud, watercolor on paper Bill O’Leary — The Washington Post, photograph D. C. Gardens and Retreats Washington, D.C., is a city of green areas — the National Mall, impressive public gardens and cozy private spaces. Also, tucked in corners are community plots with avid gardeners producing an array of fruits, vegetables and flowers. www.doaks.org/gardens Dumbarton Oaks R and 31st streets Washington, D.C. www.myfranciscan.org/ Franciscan Monastery 1400 Quincy Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20017-3087 (202) 636-4247 www.nps.gov/rocr/index.htm Rock Creek Park A Piedmont stream valley, www.washingtonyouth extending south from the Maryland garden.org/ -D.C. border to the Potomac River Washington Youth Garden R St. and Bladensburg Rd. NE www.usbg.gov Washington, DC 20002 The United States Botanic Garden (202) 245-2709 100 Maryland Avenue, SW Washington, D.C. 20001 www.whitehouse.gov/ blog/2011/03/17/replanting-white- www.usna.usda.gov/ house-garden U.S. National Arboretum The White House Garden 3501 New York Avenue, N.E. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, D.C. 20002-1958 Washington, D.C. 20230 (202) 245-2726 (202) 208-1631 MARY KATE CANNISTRA — THE WASHINGTON POST

The District of Columbia in May 2011 passed the D.C. Healthy Schools Act. Through it, D.C. schools may receive grants to set up school gardens and create compost piles. At least nine schools have vegetable gardens.

SARAH L. VOISIN — THE WASHINGTON POST Maryland and Virginia Gardens and Farmers Markets The public gardens of the metropolitan Residents can purchase fresh vegetables, fruits area provide retreats and open-air botanical and berries at local farmers markets and produce laboratories. Rare and common plant species mix stands. Area estates and gardens also provide an in their collections to educate and to inspire all opportunity to see produce on vines and boughs who venture into these green spaces. before they are harvested.

SANDRA LEAVITT LERNER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST JONATHAN ERNST — REUTERS Azaleas abound in many area gardens each spring. Cherries and berries for sale at the Arlington Farmers Market.

Maryland Virginia www.mda.state.md.us/ www.hgic.umd.edu/ Old Town Alexandria www.meadowlarkgardens. md_products/farmers_ Maryland Home and Garden Farmers’ Markets org/ market_dir.php Information Center Market Square Meadowlark Botanical 2011 Maryland Farmers’ Pests, plants and master 301 King Street Gardens Market Directory gardeners Saturdays, 5:30 a.m.-11 a.m., 9750 Meadowlark Listed by county year round Gardens Court www.nps.gov/pisc/index. Vienna, VA 22182 www.brooksidegardens.org htm www.arlingtonva.us/ Brookside Gardens Piscataway Park departments/ParksRec- www.mtvernon.org Accokeek, MD 1800 Glenallan Avenue Mt. Vernon National Colonial Farm reation/scripts/facilities/ Silver Spring, MD 20902 3200 Mount Vernon depicts a Maryland middle- ParksRecreationScriptsFa- (301) 962-1400 Memorial Highway class family farm on the cilitiesCommunityGardens. aspx Mt. Vernon, VA eve of the American Arlington Community George Washington’s house, www.dnr.state.md.us/pub- Revolution; Park protects liclands/tawesgarden.asp Garden Program farm and burial site Helen Avalynne the view from George Tawes Garden Washington’s Mt. Vernon www.gardensites.info/ www.oatlands.org/ 580 Taylor Avenue at Rowe across the Potomac River states/va.htm Oatlands Historic House Boulevard Garden Sites In Virginia and Gardens Annapolis, MD 21401 www.smallmuseum.org/ Web overview of major 20850 Oatlands In the 5-acre garden Mary- schifferstadt.htm gardens Plantation Lane Schifferstadt Architectural land’s geographic areas are Leesburg, VA 20175 Museum Gardens featured. “The Black-Eyed 110 Rosemont Avenue, www.fairfaxcounty.gov/ Susan” newsletter; summer www.vdacs.virginia.gov/ Baker Park parks/gsgp/ day camp vagrown/index.shtml Frederick, MD 20701 Green Spring Gardens 4603 Green Spring Road Virginia Department of Agricul- German colonial house Alexandria, VA 22312 ture and Consumer Services www.ilovegardens.com/ surrounded by Maryland%20Gardens.htm (703) 642-5173 Links to farmers markets, gardens, apple farm stands and pick-your- I Love Gardens.com orchard and beds List of Maryland gardens own farms; recipes, food of herbs and festivals 18th century vegetables and small fruits CONSUMER REPORTS INSIGHTS Build Your Building a sandwich Own Healthy Sandwich that’s better for you Create a sandwich that uses It’s easy to turn a classic hoagie into a diet hero. Follow fresh fruits or vegetables. these tips from Matt Goulding, a chef and co-author of What will be ready to harvest Eat This, Not That! (Rodale Books). in your garden or to buy at a Consider your bread All Natural meats say they have market? Choose whole-grain breads, no added nitrates or nitrites and which are high in fiber and various are certified by the American Use the advice given by nutrients. Look for those with Heart Association as being low in fewer than 150 calories per slice, saturated fat and cholesterol. And Matt Goulding to select the since a sandwich, in total, should Boar’s Head has been ahead of the bread you will use. Will your have no more than about 400 curve in reducing sodium in its sandwich use two slices? Be calories. meats. open face? Or be a wrap? • Good choices: Thomas’ Double Fiber Honey Wheat Melt the cheese English Muffins have 120 calories That releases its moisture and Will you include meat or be all and five grams of fiber. Their flavor, so you can use less mayo or fruits and vegetables? small size encourages stacking other high-calorie condiments. sandwiches high, which tricks • Good choices: Swiss tends the brain into thinking that you’re to lower in sodium. Mozzarella Complement means eating more than you really are. tends to have fewer calories. For to complete or perfect Weight Watchers 100% Whole- both, choose low-fat varieties. something. Condiments such Wheat Pita Pocket Bread has only 100 calories but nine grams Be creative with condiments as salt, pepper, mustards, of fiber. Replace mayonnaise with relishes and sauces add to guacamole, hummus or black-bean the taste to improve, enhance Opt for home-cooked meat dip. Or use avocado strips or or adjust the flavor of Cold cuts are often loaded with peppery arugula. sodium as well as nitrates and • Good choices: Wholly ingredients. What condiments nitrites, preservatives that have Guacamole Classic has four will you use to add more been linked to an increased risk of grams of healthy fat and 50 flavor or to complement cancer. If you do buy cold cuts, try calories per serving. Hellman’s to avoid smoked meats, which are Mayonnaise Dressing with the textures of the healthy often particularly high in sodium. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil spread ingredients you are using? • Good choices: Hormel has slightly more than half Natural Choice’s line of packaged the calories of standard mayo. What will you name your deli meats claim they’re free Hellman’s also offers a cholesterol- of added nitrates and nitrites. free canola-based product. sandwich? Three slices of its oven-roasted turkey contain 50 calories, one © Copyright 2010. Consumers Union gram of fat and 490 milligrams of of United States, Inc. sodium. Labels on Boar’s Head Volume 10, Issue 8

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program “I came here to have spiritual sustenance and beauty. It’s beautiful.” — Kerry Kemp, gardener Season of disappointment A community garden on Masonic temple grounds must close to facilitate the building’s renovation

By Larissa Roso

pring has come to the Temple Garden near Dupont Circle with a profusion of red and purple tulips and yellow daffodils. Snap peas,S lettuce and garlic are popping up, soon to be followed by tomatoes, eggplants, beans and melons for harvest throughout summer. But for all of the cheerfulness that spring brings to gardens, this is a sad season for the gardeners of Temple Garden. The quarter-acre community garden is on private land owned by the Temple of the Supreme Council of the 33rd and Last Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry ASTRID RIECKEN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST for the Southern Jurisdiction of the Kerry Kemp has worked the land at Temple Garden for 15 years. United States, or House of the Temple, for short. After more than two decades of and there’s no certainly that the garden Kemp, who has gardened at Temple providing herbs, flowers, vegetables and will reopen after the work is completed. Garden for 15 years. “It’s an urban fruit, the garden will close in November The 100 members who plant and oasis, a place for refuge.” to accommodate a renovation of the maintain the garden on 15th Street After the terrorist attacks of Sept. temple, on 16th Street, NW. NW between R and S streets, and the 11, 2001, she added, “everyone came The garden is needed as a space for 75 people on its waiting list, say they here to have a community and regroup. construction crews to store and prepare will mourn not only the flowers and My mother died last year. I came materials as they upgrade the electrical crops, but also the peace the garden here to have spiritual sustenance and system, plumbing and elevators in the has brought them in a bustling city. beauty. It’s beautiful. It’s like the secret temple. The renovation could take years, “Everyone is devastated,” said Kerry garden.”

his article was published on April 19, 2011, in the Metro section of The Washington Post. What does this indicate about Tthe timeline given gardeners? Whose point of view is missing from the article at this point?

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

Season of disappointment | continued Use the following information and quotations to write the rest of the article on your own paper. You may change the order of the following to best tell the story. Be sure to provide proper and accurate attribution.

1911-1915 Construction of the Masonic Temple Tom Mayes, who has had a plot since 1998, indicated the experience has brought moments of pure joy — the first 2001 D. C. Council approved the closing of an goldfinches in late spring and the sunflowers still blooming alley in the center of the House of the in September, “brilliant against the clear blue skies.” Temple property on the condition that temple keep the community garden Mayes stated: open for at least five more years. “The rosemary bush in my plot is the oldest thing there. I’ve used it in hundreds of recipes, April 9, 2011 Letter of intent sent to David Rosner, Temple Garden Association president but the most frequent is the homemade focaccia. I love the smell of that plant as I Barbara Golden, an attorney for the House of the Temple, brush past it. And I note that in the meaning in an interview stated: of plants, rosemary is for remembrance.” “In fact, we kept it beyond that. We wanted to be a good neighbor. We weren’t doing WHICH PHOTO WILL YOU USE? anything different in the building. We weren’t planning these renovations. We didn’t need it. Now we do.”

If a compromise can’t be found, the group will look for places where it can relocate and start a new garden.

Rosner and Kemp plan to ask the temple for a meeting to discuss the closure.

Temple officials in an interview indicated they had no choice but to close the garden because the renovations are urgent. PHOTOS BY ASTRID RIECKEN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST Golden indicated the gardeners will have time to make new Signs at Temple Garden designate walking paths among plots. arrangements.

David Rosner stated in an interview: “We are going to ask them to reconsider and if there’s anything we could work out. Our primary message is going to be: Thank you for what you’ve done for us. The secondary is: Is there anything we can do? Are there alternatives we can explore?”

Kemp stated: “This is where our heart is.” Chris Dragisic, top center, and Kerry Kemp read at a table while Brad Peniston collects his tools at Temple Garden.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program April is not too late to start a veggie garden

By Adrian Higgins and even sand. Raw sand thrown into a marathon. It’s a long-term, cyclical Washington Post Staff Writer clay holes is not much use, but I find it of enterprise. April is a key moment, but it ______value thoroughly mixed first with all that is only one in the year. organic matter and then incorporated This was driven home to me last year • Originally Published April 14, 2011 into the soil. A digging fork is the best when I got a community garden plot in tool for this. Rototillers fluff up the soil mid-March and had to hustle to ready In April, the blossoms and bulbs down to about seven inches and then it for the season ahead. Though small, distract the gardener from what’s really leave you with hardpan beneath. it needed a lot of work: I had to shore going on: a profound seasonal shift from Would this be a better project for up a hill and put in little terraces. I had sweater weather to the first of many March, or even February? Of course. to build wooden bed frames and rip hot, clammy afternoons. The month’s The ground should be prepped by now out the old, ugly fence and build a new metamorphosis also awakens an urgent and planted. The window on the spring one. I wanted to paint the fence before need by many to run out and plant a garden is closing. The plodding, diligent sheathing it in wire mesh. vegetable garden. gardener will have planted kale and I struggled and failed to meet the This is easier said than done, as this broccoli transplants; sown radishes, initial spring planting and then saw reader’s plaintive note suggests: “When beets and lettuce; and put in the peas the rest of the planting period begin is the best time to start from scratch? and the potatoes. But don’t despair: to slip from my grasp. One frenetic My husband would like to give it a go The summer garden can be planted morning, I looked up to the neighbor’s this year, but I have no energy and think until Memorial Day, with transplants plot to see the first lone sunflower of the by the time we get started, it would be of tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, year looking down on me. What was I too late.” and sowings of cucumbers, beans and racing to accomplish, the flower asked, The writer, one infers, knows all about squash. that couldn’t wait until the garden was the rigors of garden building: the tenacity If you are on the fence, I’d say do it, ready? Suddenly, this self-imposed of turf against the skimming shovel and if only because we are due for a kind burden lifted, my blood pressure went the way a tool handle likes to rub raw growing season after a few that have down, bliss overcame the angst, and the web of skin between the thumb and been too hot or too dry or too something I and the sunflower deemed that this forefinger. She knows about sinking into else. little plot would be completed in its a hot bath on a Sunday night and hoping But fundamentally, to the folks struck own time. to die. She knows about getting up the by what I call April syndrome, I would Sometimes, when we try to seize the next morning and pouring Advil on her say: Snap out of it. Gardening, even day, it seizes us. I’d rather embrace the corn flakes. He is thinking of picking a vegetable gardening, is not a sprint; it’s process. ■ Brandywine tomato. Should she scramble now to meet the growing season? Yes. Carving a few square feet of growing bed out of Follow @adrian_higgins on Twitter for updates on a lawn or, better yet, in an old, cleared gardening and other cosmic events. ornamental bed, may not constitute the www.washingtonpost.com/local/sowing-growing- perfect veggie garden, but it’s a start. and-harvesting-in-a-community-garden/2011/03/23/ Just pick an area that is reasonably flat, AB0nzMJB_video.html that drains and is in a sunny spot. Sowing, growing and harvesting in a community garden Our native clay soil is a beast, but it can be tamed, initially with large The Washington Post’s Adrian Higgins preps his quantities of compost, leaf mold, well- community garden plot for the start of spring. The 5:27 rotted manure, mineral soil conditioners Adrian Higgins video shows Higgins at work, many tips given.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program Getting the vegetable garden ready

By Adrian Higgins and replenishment. Finished, screened Washington Post Staff Writer compost or well-rotted manure (never ______fresh) can be added. I like to add a few cups of wood ash • Originally Published March 24, 2011 and bone meal and a bag of powdered limestone. Spread the amendments Spring has arrived and with it the evenly on the surface before you start chance to crank up that wonderful to dig, so that you can turn them in. element of the growing season ahead: I prefer a high-quality, well-balanced the veggie garden. Growing garden fork for digging, vegetables is an easy but though a shovel or spade methodical pursuit where will do the job too. timing is everything. Early Work backward in rows spring is the moment when to avoid stepping on newly the whole year is set into dug soil. As you turn and motion, the period when break the soil, pull last the garden is dug, weeded, year’s dead vegetation seeded and prepared for the and, most important, any coming months. The next weeds. Use a hoe to finely two or three weekends are chop soil clods, and rake or important for putting in the hoe the bed smooth. cool-season garden that yields Apart from bed such treats in May and June preparation, weeding is as fresh salad greens, radishes the most important step and peas. Procrastinators, in the spring cleanup. take heart. You have until Annual winter weeds are May to ready your plot now maturing and must for the summer garden. In be pulled before they August, we told you how to flower and seed. The lay out, build and decorate a most common culprits vegetable garden. Today we are henbit, chickweed, offer a gentle nudge in getting annual bluegrass and hairy it cranked up for the 2011 bittercress. The safest, growing season. Remember, most organic approach is your garden needs at least six BY GUIDDAUD CHRISTOPHE — ABACA PRESS VIA NEWSCOM to pull the weeds by hand full hours of direct sunlight or slice them with a sharp to be successful. The rest is the soil on either side of a bed without hoe. In beds that are being up to you. stepping into it. Human feet will quickly dug, simply break apart the soil and squeeze the vital air and moisture out remove entire weeds by hand, roots Cleaning up of soil. and all, and throw them in a five-gallon Small beds with good soil can be culti- For the vegetable gardener, there is bucket. vated with a three-prong cultivator. This something deeply satisfying about clear- Weed paths before laying a seasonal will loosen the top few inches of soil, ing away last year’s detritus and creat- mulch. I like to use a thick layer of which then can be raked smooth. Larger ing a clean slate for the new season. wood chips; others in my community beds that have not been dug for a while Growing beds should be separated from garden prefer straw. Reset any edging probably will be compacted, depleted in paths, and beds should be no more than organic matter and in need of soil fluffing four feet wide. This allows you to work continued ON page 21

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 20 If you’re not into indoor seed-starting, you can that has come loose buy young plants and during the winter. Now set them in the garden is also the best time to later in the spring. Two repair fences, gates and caveats: Your selection arbors. will be more limited than A wheelbarrow is seed-grown veggies, and handy for both hauling many retailers make bags of soil and mixing these warm-season amendments, and for plants available too early transporting mulch for for their own good. They paths. Make sure the should not be planted tire is pumped up and out until early May. the axle greased. Many summer and fall garden vegetables can What to Plant be sown directly into Every vegetable goes the soil, but only after through three basic things have warmed up phases in the gardener’s and frost is a memory. hands: starting, growing However, order them and harvesting. now and keep the seed Early spring is all packets in the fridge about starting for many until you are ready to vegetables, particularly BY GUIDDAUD CHRISTOPHE — ABACA PRESS VIA NEWSCOM sow them. Do this for the cool-season varieties cucumbers, summer and that grow until early summer. including mesclun mixes, arugula and winter squash, lima and asparagus beans, Some of the varieties are started mustard greens. Peas grow to four feet melons and sweet corn. indoors in January and February and or so and do best on trellis netting. Sow Beans, carrots and parsnips can take then set out in April as transplants. If you garden (or English) peas, snow peas colder conditions, but I don’t like to missed the boat, you can still buy them and sugar peas for harvest in late May sow them until May so they germinate as young plants from garden centers, and June. Sow chard, beet, radish and quickly and the risk of the seeds rotting mass merchandisers and even through collards. in cold, wet soil is diminished. Brussels the mail. Look for healthy young plants I like to sow seeds in straight lines so sprouts are delicious in late fall, when that have not been allowed to wilt. that I can distinguish between seedlings they can be harvested alongside carrots As transplants, consider members of and emerging weeds. I use a spool of and leeks. Start them indoors in early the cabbage family: cabbages, broccoli, string and stake to get the lines straight June and plant them out in late July. kale and kohlrabi. Members of the onion and correctly spaced, and then form Turnips and Asian greens, as well as family should be planted now for spring a furrow with my finger or the sharp heading lettuce, do best as a fall crop in and summer harvest, including bunching corner of a hoe. Seedlings have to be our region. onions, onions sold as sets and usually thinned to allow proper development. by color, leeks and chives. I am also Follow the directions for thinning, and A border of herbs putting in seed-started transplants of row spacing, on the seed packet. Herbs are an integral part of the well- globe artichokes and parsley. rounded vegetable garden and provide Many seeds can be directly sown in the How to sow beauty as well as utility. garden once beds are prepared. Lettuce, Warm-season plants such as eggplant, My main herb border is about 16 feet in all its forms, should be sown now. tomatoes, peppers and okra, as well as long by 12 inches wide. Its narrowness Keep some seed for a fall crop, when sweet basil, can still be started indoors will mean that some of the herbs will heading lettuce varieties do better in from seed in late March, under lights. Washington. With proper care, they will be ready for In early spring, sow salad greens, transplanting in the garden in mid-May. continued ON page 22

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

continued from page 21 hard as part of the spring cleanup. Don’t or, in the case of vines, added to trellises do this. If you cut lavender plants to the supporting tomatoes, cucumbers, beans spill onto the path, but that is part of the crown, they will likely die. Wait until new and other vertical plants. charm. Herbs that can be killed in a se- growth emerges in about a month before Zinnias are unbeatable for flower vere winter, such as sweet bay, rosemary cutting back stems by one-third to a half. production from July through October. I and Spanish lavender, are best planted As much as I like the French hybrids, like the Benary’s Giant series, especially in spring after they have been hardened such as Provence and Grosso, they are the white, orange and lime green varieties. off. A season of growth will stand them too big for my narrow borders, and I use They were bred for the vase but also make in better stead for their first winter than the smaller English lavender instead, good garden plants, and are somewhat herbs planted later in the year. variety Hidcote. resistant to late-season powdery mildew. These and other perennial herbs such Sow seeds directly in beds in early to as garden sage, oregano and thyme will mid-May, once the soil has warmed. take two or three years Shirley poppies and to fill out, so space them California poppies are correctly and put in annuals another easy annual. Of the such as basil and borage latter, several varieties have as short-term fillers around been introduced beyond the them. usual (but charming) orange- Repeating strong forms in flowered version. Sow seeds a herb border is important directly now, and again next in establishing a pleasing fall. visual rhythm. Lavender, Dahlias fit well with the rosemary, garden sage exuberant nature of the or rue perform this role. garden, especially in late Rue is the least useful as summer into fall. I think a herb, but its blue-green three- to four-foot flowered foliage is highly attractive, varieties are best suited to the and the plant attracts the vegetable garden, especially caterpillars of the black varieties with single or semi- swallowtail. Chives provide double flowers. Some of my useful vertical wisps, and favorites are Fascination, the lavender blue blooms H.S. Party, Red Riding Hood are charming in mid-spring. and the more frilly varieties Garlic chives, which are of the Karma series. Tubers related, flower white in late should be ordered now and summer. can be started in pots until I have tried the variegated they go into the garden in and purple varieties of May. garden sage, but I have Sunflowers provide come round to the enduring BY GUIDDAUD CHRISTOPHE — ABACA PRESS VIA NEWSCOM gargantuan ornament from beauty of the gray-green midsummer on, and the seeds types. sustain finches and gardener Sweet basil is our reward for suffering Flowers in the vegetable garden alike. If the mammoth varieties are too hot, humid summers. You can start basil Flowers brighten the vegetable big and tall, choose smaller versions such from seed indoors now, but there is no garden, elevate its character and draw as Italian White, Chianti, Sunny Smile value in planting basil in the garden in hummingbirds and other pollinators. and Sonja. April, even if plant retailers are selling it. There are no rules about mingling The Mexican sunflower or tithonia is It is killed by frost and hates cold nights, flowering annuals with edible plants, quite different, forming a bushy mound and shouldn’t be planted until early May. other than not crowding or shading your Lavender looks half dead at this time of veggies. Flowers can be incorporated into year, and the temptation is to cut it back growing beds, given separate real estate continued ON page 23

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

continued from page 22 they will seed prodigiously. They acclimation. Seedlings and young are relatives of morning glories and transplants are especially vulnerable to of small orange flowers. The seeds can be moonvine flowers, both lovely additions cold winds, sun stress and overnight sown directly around Mother’s Day. to the vertical show. frosts. To “harden off” plants in Marigolds are a bit trite, but they are I have become fond, over the years, of theirpots, place them in the day in a reliable bloomers in the heat of high the black-eyed susan vine, which can be shady and sheltered location and bring summer if the gardener removes the sown now indoors for a little jump on them indoors at night. A cool garage or fading flowers. You could start from seed the season, or directly in the soil in May. shed is ideal. Do this for a week and the now indoors or buy transplants in May. If you want to see out the season with a plants will be ready for planting in the Varieties in the Disco series are good bang, plant a vine named Spanish flag garden. Keep plants inside if daytime performers and look as elegant as a or firecracker vine. It displays a spray of temperatures stay below the mid-40s or marigold can get. tubular flowers opening red and fading on windy days. During hardening off, Annual vines are particularly charming to white. They are striking but late, young plants must not be allowed to dry on trellises, arbors and fences, and bloom sometimes not opening until October. out and wilt, nor should they be left in right through the growing season. They standing water. If squirrels are a problem, can be grown alongside beans and vining Moving plants outdoors use a screened porch, if you have one. tomatoes. Cardinal vines offer feathery Even hardy plants will suffer if planted Hobby gardeners use cold frames for foliage and delicate red blooms, though outdoors in the spring before proper hardening off spring plants. n

A Vocabulary Lesson for Lawn And Garden Learning

By Joel M. Lerner Kitchen garden: An area on your property to grow fruits ______and vegetables that will supply exercise and fresh produce. A fence covered with lattice or wire with openings no • Originally Published October 27, 2007 larger than one inch will discourage most wildlife, as will marigolds, native tansy and lavender. Fertilizer: Any material that supplies nutrients to plants. It can be synthetically derived, naturally derived, slow-release Mulch: A gardening term that has gone through many or water-soluble. Major nutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus incarnations. It originally referred to manure, straw or and potassium. leaves laid over new plant roots to hold moisture. Next, young roots were “mulched” to keep them from heaving Green manure: Plants grown for the purpose of being plowed from the ground because of continual freezing and thawing. under (incorporated into soil) over a short time to enrich Now it is also used as compost tilled into the soil, supplying the soil. Legumes like peas, clovers, vetches and alfalfas fix organisms necessary to make plants thrive. nitrogen in their roots that they take from the air as they grow and are an excellent way to add organic material. Native: Indigenous to the region.

Insects: Ninety percent of all known arthropods. Many are Soil: A mixture of live organisms and minerals that make up benign and live in balance with other organisms; others are the outer mantle of the earth and is crucially important to plant pests; some carry serious plant or human diseases. our environment. We depend on it for plants to grow. For example, bees and butterflies pollinate plants, elm bark beetles carry Dutch elm diseases; mosquitoes transmit viruses. Many beneficial insects and other animals eat The above glossary is excerpted from the original list by numerous insect pests, helping to maintain a balance in Joel M. Lerner, author of Anyone Can Landscape. nature.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program Frustration over school gardens takes root

By Michael Birnbaum time with her second-grade daughter Parents say that’s not a meaningful Washington Post Staff Writer in their own Takoma Park vegetable option for teachers who want to make ______garden, which attracts nary a rat. growing food part of the school day. “If you had a fruit tree, you could When the gardens are off school • Originally Published January 2, 2011 see the fruit growing on the tree,” grounds, “it’s kind of pointless, because Schoeneman said. “If you had a little it’s not acting within the curriculum, Charlotte Schoeneman thought her plot, you could have beans and some and the teachers couldn’t embrace it,” daughter’s Takoma Park school would chard and some onions. You could watch said Kristen Dill, another Takoma Park welcome a parent proposal to start those things growing on their own.” Elementary parent. She has a degree in a vegetable garden; the city typically Montgomery County’s handful of horticulture and grew up in Nebraska. embraces all things green. school vegetable gardens came about But she’s been stymied in the suburban But she and other Montgomery only because some schools went rogue wilds of Montgomery County. County parents were rebuffed, told that and built them without central office “Elsewhere, there’s so much energy one person’s tomato is another one’s permission. Parents whisper about them right now” around vegetable gardens maintenance nightmare. School officials and try to shield them from publicity. at schools, Dill said. In Montgomery, cited allergies, pests and possible A February letter from Superintendent by contrast, “it feels like molasses,” she summertime neglect as reasons for Jerry D. Weast to the school board said. concern. outlined his concerns. School officials said they are working The parents, who were inspired in part “Because vegetable gardens are a to develop standardized plans for by first lady Michelle Obama’s container gardens that schools national campaign to fight could use as soon as this childhood obesity, said they’re spring. The school system also puzzled by the school system’s “Vegetable gardens teach has allowed some property decision. In D.C., which has near administrative buildings the highest rate of adolescent kids that there’s more to — not schools — to be used obesity in the country, several for community vegetable public schools have gardens, a meal than just chicken gardens. But many parents and and a recently passed law community advocates say that’s encourages more. Arlington nuggets on a plastic tray.” not enough. County boasts about 25. “There are school systems “Vegetable gardens teach — Charlotte Schoenaman, around the country that are kids that there’s more to a Takoma Park elementary parent and PTA member embracing this,” said Gordon meal than just chicken nuggets Clark, director of Montgomery on a plastic tray,” Schoeneman Victory Gardens, a group said. pushing for community gardens. Schoeneman said that she and food source for pests, create liabilities “Any school that wants to do it should other members of the Takoma Park for children with food allergies, and have some support from the school Elementary School PTA have worked have other associated concerns, the system to do it any way they want.” to improve food at the school, though Department of Facilities Management Parents and teachers around their victories have been minor at best. staff has not approved gardens designed Montgomery County, including at The school’s principal nixed a proposal to produce food,” he wrote. Takoma Park and Piney Branch to use school property for a garden, He suggested instead that the school elementary schools and Montgomery Schoeneman said, saying she was system work with the Montgomery Blair High School, have tried worried about attracting pests. Department of Parks to build gardens Schoeneman said she enjoys spending on park property near school sites. continued ON page 25

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

continued from page 24 move on to more significant direct control. traditional raised beds. “There’s no central unsuccessfully to start vegetable “We just want to give policy of ‘this is where gardens. them the right guidance to your garden’s going to Montgomery officials said there is no be successful.” be, this is what you’re ban against vegetable gardens and cite Many other local school going to grow.’ It’s up the schools that have them to prove systems have embraced to the school,” said their point. But they said they have gardens without such caveats. Frank Bellavia, a discouraged them until now due to The first lady made headlines spokesman for the concerns about pests such as rats and when she invited students from school system. groundhogs, who might be attracted to Bancroft Elementary School in Bellavia said he the vegetables, and with student allergies the District to help plant the had not heard of to certain crops. Nevertheless, they’re White House vegetable garden, any issues with committed to the idea, they said. and she made more headlines pests or allergies and “Any school in Montgomery County when she in turn visited Bancroft that someone from the community that wants a vegetable garden, there to help students plant theirs. typically maintains the gardens over will be a way for them to have a The D.C. Healthy Schools Act, passed the summer. Vegetables from the school vegetable garden,” said Sean Gallagher, in May, created a program that gives gardens usually are donated to a food assistant director of the school system’s grants to D.C. schools to help them set bank, he said. Department of Facilities Management. up school gardens and encourages them Meanwhile, Montgomery parents have Initially, he said, schools will have to create compost piles as part of them. lowered their expectations. an approved template for a portable At least nine schools have vegetable “I’m not really hoping for much,” said container garden. Later, “if a school has gardens. Schoeneman. “I just keep plugging away, shown they can do really well with a And in Arlington, the school system and maybe something good will happen container garden,” they might be able to has encouraged gardens without exerting as the tides turn.” n

JULIA EWAN — THE WASHINGTON POST

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program Arboretum reverses decision to destroy azalea display after public backlash

By Adrian Higgins collections in the future,” said Kathy Horan, executive director Washington Post Staff Writer of the Friends of the National Arboretum, according to a news ______release. The arboretum’s director, Colien Hefferan, acknowledged • Originally Published February 16, 2011 “that the intensity and breadth of the concern did surprise everyone here.” She said she wants to get horticultural Officials at the National Arboretum have halted a plan to experts together in the spring to devise long-term plans for destroy its most popular floral attraction — a display of 10,000 the arboretum’s 15 major plant collections and gardens and to mature azalea shrubs — as its new director seeks to improve work with the friends group to find more private funding. the long-term picture of the financially strapped federal The 446-acre arboretum is a public botanical garden and institution. a research facility for the U.S. Agriculture Department’s The decision to rip out the 65-year-old Glenn Dale azalea Agricultural Research Service. display in the botanical garden in Northeast Washington In November, Hefferan’s predecessor approved a plan to spurred a public outcry and a campaign to save the azaleas. reduce the collections after the unexpected loss of a $110,000 It also prompted an anonymous donor to pledge a $1 million grant, which helped pay for two gardeners. This spring would endowment to be used toward preserving the azaleas and the have been the last flowering of the azaleas on a hillside called arboretum’s world-class boxwood collection, which was also Mount Hamilton. The spectacle helps to draw as many as targeted for removal. 100,000 visitors over a peak six-week period in April and “This generous donation, offered in the Arboretum’s hour May. of greatest need, reflects not only the donor’s passion for this The azaleas were targeted because the lineage of many has national treasure, but also confidence that the Arboretum leadership will make sound decisions in relation to the continued ON page 27

SARAH L. VOISIN — THE WASHINGTON POST Next year's proposed budget for the National Arboretum, a federally-funded institution, has been cut by $2 million.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued FROM page 26 not been identified, diminishing their scientific value. Under the plan, collections of daffodils and perennials would also have been removed. Jeanne Connelly, chairman of the friends group’s board, said the plant collections have won a reprieve but their future still depends on finding maintenance funds. The anonymous donation will generate about $50,000 a year, she said. The group has started a fundraising campaign to match the donation and replace the lost grant. The new $1 million gift is the largest single donation in the group’s history. The anonymous donor has made the gift in honor of friends: prominent Washington lawyer Brendan V. Sullivan Jr. and his wife, Lila Sullivan. The decision to suspend the KATHERINE FREY — THE WASHINGTON POST Areas of the U.S. National Arboretum show neglect and decline. Major cracks appear in walls removal of the displays “was linked surrounding the Azalea Gardens. to the outcry” rather than the donation, Connelly said. “There was this incredible backlash,” she said. Organizers created a Web site, savetheazaleas.org, and lobbied members of Congress and the administration to come to the defense of the Glenn Dale azaleas. “I think what this has shown is that the people in the Washington area really strongly support the National Arboretum,” said one of the protesters, Don Hyatt, a retired teacher in McLean. “We are very thankful for the wide support this issue has brought forth.” Successive arboretum directors have struggled with chronic underfunding that has led to deferred maintenance of gardens and infrastructure. Its administration building is closed for a $9 million restoration funded by federal stimulus money. n

Visit this related website for more SANDRA LEAVITT LEARNER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST information on citizens’ response and Azaleas in May bloom at the U.S. National Arboretum. campaign to save the azaleas: Save the Azaleas (http://savetheazaleas.org/)

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

as an integral part of the Georgetown or overgrowth. “When you get down to Conservancy estate, indeed the pastoral counterpoint a small size, the extinction rate goes up. to the formal gardens above. When the You can take a species to extinction in owners — Robert and Mildred Bliss — that type of place very fast.” formed gave the mansion and garden to Harvard Earlier, he told more than 100 park University in 1940, they donated the supporters that Rock Creek was known rustic section to the National Park to have had, uniquely, two species of to rescue Service. It was about then that young shrimplike creatures. In 1890, a lone Ed Wilson was rooting around with a specimen of a new species of ant was net. It may have also been the last time discovered in the park. Wilson spoke Dumbarton anyone could see the purity of Farrand’s wistfully of wanting to search “for this vision — an idyll of streamside woods lost species.” and meadows rising from a brook with The conservancy is headed by Oaks Park 18 decorative waterfalls and dams. Rebecca Trafton, a garden designer and After decades of underfunding and documentary maker, who said the group inadequate maintenance, the park remains will host a session in October to map the By Adrian Higgins popular for joggers, dog walkers and even park’s restoration, maintenance, funding Washington Post Staff Writer commuters on foot, but it is in ecological and use before launching a fundraising ______and aesthetic distress: Fields and woods campaign. are consumed by acres of invasive vines, “Dumbarton Oaks is one of the greatest • Originally Published April 14, 2011 trails have become overgrown, masonry gardens in America, and Dumbarton features are crumbling, and the stream Oaks Park is an inextricable piece of The eminent biologist Edward O. is plagued by siltation and erosion from the whole. It is perilously close to losing Wilson found his passion for nature as torrential upstream stormwater. its design and ecological integrity, but I a 10-year-old boy, he recalls, “exploring Tara Morrison, the new superintendent think we are right at the point we can with a net, searching the ground for of Rock Creek Park, said visitors bring it back to life,” said Trafton. different kinds of ants. I was born as a can “still witness the beauty of the Wilson was joined by Elizabeth naturalist in Rock Creek Park.” original design.” Others may find that Barlow Rogers, a garden historian and Wilson, the Harvard professor a charitable assessment — five years writer who led the charge to bring emeritus and father of the study of ago a preservation group, the Cultural New York’s Central Park up from its ant and other animal societies, returned Landscape Foundation, said Farrand’s nadir by establishing the Central Park to Washington this week in a sort of landscape was in danger of being lost. Conservancy in 1980. You bring a park payback to the park. A 27-acre offshoot Wilson arrived at the Washington back, she said, by having a vision “and a of it, named Dumbarton Oaks Park, National Cathedral late Tuesday visionary,” by having a community that pales in comparative size to the main afternoon to assist in the public launch values it, and by forging a partnership stem of Rock Creek Park, all 1,700 acres of the private group formed to save with the public entity that owns it. As a of it. But to landscape historians, it is the park, the Dumbarton Oaks Park young mother in Washington, she would hallowed ground. It is also on the edge Conservancy. The event was moved from stroll with her baby daughter from Foggy of survival. With Wilson’s help, a group the park because of heavy rain. Bottom to Georgetown. “And brought of preservationists have launched a new Strolling the cathedral grounds her to where? Dumbarton Oaks Park.” effort to save the park, which has been afterward, Wilson said that it sounds as Local volunteers and environmentalists mugged by time, stormwater runoff, and if the park needs to be “reengineered” have been trying to clean up the park for rampant vines and other weeds. to fix the flooding problems, before years. The park adjoins the mansion and its biological health can be restored. Trafton is determined to bring it back. gardens of Dumbarton Oaks and was The degradation inevitably damages Like Wilson’s beloved ants, “we are small, designed by the same venerated landscape the biodiversity, he said, as colonies of but we are tough.” architect, Beatrix Farrand, native species are overtaken by erosion [email protected]

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program The future king on the future of food Prince Charles attends Future of Food conference at Georgetown

By Manuel Roig-Franzia Washington Post Staff Writer ______

•Originally Published May 5, 2011

Prince William’s dad — also known as Charles, the future king of England — knows a bit about taking verbal punches. Promoting sustainable farming and green living has been one of his life’s missions. But because he’s a royal with easy access to carbon-hogging jets, a handful of estates, flotillas of attendants and all sorts of resource-gobbling goodies, his oft-praised crusade tends to get lampooned with some frequency. “I have been venturing into extremely KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Prince Charles, on a three-day trip to Washington, waves goodbye dangerous territory by speaking about the after the Future of Food conference at Georgetown University. future of food,” the Prince of Wales told an audience Wednesday at Georgetown “It certainly makes a change from president. “Ah!” Charles said cryptically, University, evoking an image that could making embarrassing speeches about my smiling and pointing a finger in the air just as easily apply to his efforts to eldest son during wedding receptions,” before moving on. promote reducing dependence on fossil he told the audience at the Future of Food Charles was greeted by dozens of fuels. “I have the scars to prove it!” conference, organized by Washington students who braved cool weather and But, for all the grief he gets, Charles Post Live, a unit of this newspaper that rain to catch a glimpse of him as he clearly loves the subject, and he held forth holds conferences and events. rolled up to the ancient hall in a seven-car for more than 40 minutes, delivering a Charles’s keynote address was delivered motorcade. Charles chatted briefly with dry, sobering and substantive message on the second day of a three-day trip to some of them before entering the hall, of impending worldwide crisis. And Washington that included a stop Tuesday complimenting Dominick Fiorentino, a his remarks, once known for being at Common Good City Farm, an urban 19-year-old business major from New radical, were delivered to a Washington farm and educational center in LeDroit York, on the British flags he was waving. audience on the day when Republicans Park, as well as a planned sit-down “I think he’s using his position to spread and Democrats agreed that agri-business Wednesday afternoon with President a message about sustainable food,” Kevin subsidies should be cut. Indeed, just Obama and a visit with Supreme Court Rafferty, a 19-year-old business major five days after his son’s international Justice Stephen G. Breyer, whose wife, from Newtown Square, Pa., said after blockbuster of a wedding to Kate Joanna Freda Hare, is the daughter of exchanging a few words with the prince. Middleton, Charles seemed relieved to a British noble, the late John Hare, 1st “I respect that.” return to deriding agriculture’s “umbilical Viscount Blakenham. As Charles arrived In parts of the blogosphere, Charles’s dependency on oil” and warning that at Georgetown’s Healy Hall, a British reception has been much frostier. Phelim humans “are pushing nature’s life-support reporter called out a question about system too far.” what the prince would discuss with the continued ON page 30

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued FROM page 29

McAleer, an Irish journalist and filmmaker, was getting prominent play on right-leaning blogs and YouTube with his 2-minute-14- second film “Prince Charles – Hypocrite.” It starts with a clip of Charles saying, “We are making it cool to use less stuff.” That’s followed by a rollout of images — accompanied by a Bach minuet — of vast estates. (There’s no Airbus this time. Charles flew to Washington in a private jet owned by Texas billionaire Joe Allbritton.) “Sustainability is an awful concept,” McAleer said in an interview from his Los Angeles home. “It’s rich, white people telling mostly brown and black SEEKING SUSTAINABILITY: Prince Charles visited Common Good City Farm in the District's people that they need to stay LeDroit Park. poor.” One of the main themes of the “And yet we are told ceaselessly — He quoted George Washington, saying, Georgetown conference was finding ways ceaselessly! — that sustainable or organic “Raise a standard to which the wise to feed the poor that uses sustainable agriculture cannot feed the world.” The and honest can repair; the rest is in the agriculture. The prince sought to prince argued that we need a “more hands of God.” Then, he added a coda: promote methods that would not deplete honest form of accounting” that takes into “And, indeed, as so often in the past, soils, overtax water supplies or rely on account the health problems associated in the hands of your great country, the the nitrogen fertilizers so often blamed with fertilizers and other products used United States of America.” for environmental degradation. to boost production. Back home, Charles is famous for “For every pound of beef produced He called for a new kind of “Washington operating his Aston Martin on a clean- in the industrial system, it takes 2,000 consensus” about sustainable food running biofuel made from surplus gallons of water,” he told a near-capacity production, invoking a term used for wine. Citing “security-related” issues, audience inside the ornate Gaston Hall the controversial neo-liberal, market- a British Embassy spokesman declined auditorium, which is on an upper floor friendly policies frequently associated to say whether any of the vehicles in of Healy Hall. “That is a lot of water, with international aid and lending Charles’s motorcade — which included and there is plenty of evidence that organizations. Charles’s Washington a Chevrolet Suburban, a Mercedes-Benz the Earth cannot keep up with the consensus would seek to balance the sport-utility vehicle, a Jaguar, a Chrysler demand.” needs for markets and a private sector 300 and a Cadillac — run on electricity Charles cited his efforts to farm “as but “recognize the real opportunities or are hybrids. Some of the vehicles are sustainably as possible” in England. and trade-offs needed to build a food operated by the U.S. State Department, He said there is “plenty of current system that enhances and ensures the the spokesman said. evidence that adopting an approach maintenance of social, economic and As Charles visited with dignitaries which mirrors the miraculous ingenuity environmental capital.” inside Healy Hall, the motorcade and its of nature can produce surprisingly high He ended his remarks by laying a drivers waited at the front door. An SUV yields of a wide range of vegetables, heavy measure of responsibility for the with diplomatic plates was making a bit arable crops, beef, lamb and milk.” future of food on the United States. of noise. Its motor was running. n

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

Academic Content Standards

This lesson addresses academic content standards of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Maryland Virginia Washington, D.C.

Science, Environmental Science: Biology: The student will plan and con- Biology, Ecosystems: Students should The student will demonstrate that duct investigations in which understand Ecosystems as dynamic data analysis is a vital aspect of the a) observations of living organisms are systems. Specifically students should be process of scientific inquiry and recorded in the lab and in the field; able to: communication. b) hypotheses are formulated based on Describe how the physical or chemical The student will describe trends direct observations and information environment may influence the rate, revealed by data (Indicator 1.4.6) from scientific literature; extent, and nature of the way organisms Health: Apply the components of e) conclusions are formed based on develop within ecosystems. (Strand 4, personal well-being to develop lifelong recorded quantitative and qualitative B.17.4) wellness skills and strategies (Grade 8, data; (BIO.1) Components of Personal Well-Being) Health: Describe the positive and nega- Life Science: The student will investigate tive influence of the media on thoughts, Visual Arts, Perceiving and Responding: and understand that the basic needs of feelings, perceptions and health behav- Students will demonstrate the ability organisms must be met in order to carry iors. (Media & Technology Influences, to perceive, interpret, and respond out life processes. Key concepts include 2.4.3) to ideas, experiences, and the a) plant needs (light, water, gases, and environment through visual art (Grade nutrients) Health: Describe the ways technology 8, Standard 1.0) can affect personal health and health Reading, General Reading Processes: Visual Arts: The student will use the behaviors for better and for worse, such Students will use a variety of strategies principles of design, including propor- as through new, effective medicines; and opportunities to understand word tion, rhythm, balance, emphasis, variety, improved exercise; and the availability meaning and to increase vocabulary. contrast, and unity, to express ideas and and nutrient quality of food. (Media & a. Acquire new vocabulary through create images. (5.5) Technological Influences, 8.4.4) listening to, independently reading, and discussing a variety of literary Health: The student will explain how Visual Arts: Apply artistic processes and and informational texts (Standard 1, peers, families, and community groups skills in a variety of media to commu- Topic D, Grade 5) work together to build a healthy communicate meaning and intent in original nity. Key concepts include works of art: a) collaborative support for Use various observational drawing skills environmental issues; to depict a variety of subject matter, to c) promotion of the value of community include sculpture, outdoors or in mu- health and wellness; (Grade 5, 5.5) seums. (Skills, Process, Materials and Tools, 8.2.3)

Standards of Learning currently in effect for Vir- The Maryland Voluntary State Curriculum ginia Public Schools can be found online at www. Learning Standards for DCPS are found online at Content Standards can be found online at http:// doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/ http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/In+the+Classroom/ mdk12.org/assessments/standards/9-12.html index.shtml What+Students+Are+Learning