Campbell Elementary School VPI (Virginia Preschool Initiative) students in Ms. Kim's class with lettuce they planted in the fall and harvested spring 2011.  25 pounds delivered to AFAC May 6th.  Every classroom at this Arlington County expeditionary learning school has a raised bed for growing plants.  Last year, all classes agreed to donate their harvests to AFAC, in keeping with two main principles of this program:  service and compassion and the natural world.

In mid-March last year, a Saturday morning work crew of Campbell Elementary School families and high school students from Escuela Bolivia's "Emerging Leaders" program helped prepare garden beds for planting lettuce and other crops.

A few more than a dozen volunteers met at the USDA experimental farm in Beltsville to pick turnips December 10.  Our contact, George, who had planted the acre of turnips “to cover the ground,” greeted us at the north farm entrance and led us out to the field.  There, he proceeded to pull, peel and sample a turnip, slicing pieces for those of us interested in trying them raw.  They were sweet and crispy, as were the winter radishes planted in with the turnips.  The sampling helped us focus on what size turnip to pick, as some of the larger specimens were woody.

 

George told us he had planted the field with less than five dollars worth of seed.  We picked more than 1300 pounds of turnips and greens in a little more than 2 hours, filling one of AFAC’s vans and loading more into a passenger van.  Since the field was eventually going to be ploughed under, volunteers all picked a few turnips to take home.  To see how one volunteer prepared the turnips and greens click here. 

To volunteer for future gleaning trips or plan for other activities, check out the list of 2012 opportunities on this web site.  You could decide to grow seedlings, volunteer to help with the Library Garden, or choose any number of ways to help in the few weeks left before planning for the growing season begins in earnest.