URBAN
PATCH
KIDS
:PHILLY
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This book belongs to:
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Let’s eat our colors Let’s get dirty Let’s compost Let’s grow
My favorite food is: My favorite color is: My favorite activity is:
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We’re Urban Patch Kids! We will... Finish filling in the blank post-its.
d practice goo es alu health and v ve create a positi ood ith f relationship w s change the eating habit in the community of our school and homes
connect food with nature and culture
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These stickers will help you remember your goals:
URBAN
PATCH
KIDS :PHILLY
URBAN
URBAN
PATCH EAT KIDS
VEGGIES
:PHILLY
URBAN
PATCH
EAT KIDS
PATCH LEARN TO
F:PHILLY RUIT
:PHILLY
URBAN
URBAN
HEALTHY
KIDS
LIVE KIDS PATCH :PHILLY
KIDS
GARDEN
BE
PATCH A C T I V E
:PHILLY
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Why should we eat our fruits and vegetables? Junk food is food that is caloriedense and nutrient poor. Fruits and vegetables contain compounds called phytochemicals that give them both their distinctive color and aroma. Phytochemicals are chemicals produced naturally by plants to protect themselves, but when consumed may also help humans protect themselves from disease. There is good evidence that a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains may reduce the risk of certain cancers, type 2 diabetes and also be good for the heart.
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Red Fruits and Vegetables
Can you name all the fruits and vegetables?
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Why is this color good for you?
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• Keeps you healthy as you get older • It lowers your risk of getting heart disease and certain cancers
• Keeps your heart healthy
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Fruits: 1 Watermelon, 2 Raspberries, 3 Pomegranates, 4 Strawberries, 5 Cherries, 6 Grapefruit, 7 Red apple, 8, Pomegranate Vegetables: 9 Beets, 10 Red pepper, 11 Red onion, 12 Red potatoes, 13 Radish, 14 Tomato
• Helps your remember things
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Did you know? 11
• Fresh apples float! Do you know why? 25% of their volume is air! • Green and red bell peppers come form the same plant. As bell peppers ripen and sweeten the color changes from green to red. • Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside. • There are over 600 different cherry varieties.
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Orange and Yellow Furit and Vegetables Why is this color good for you? • Helps you be able maintain good eyesight and vision health • Keeps you from getting sick and having a healthy immune system • Keeps you health as you get older
Did you know? • Baby carrots are cut from large carrots. • Bananas are green when they are picked and turn yellow until they ripen. • Bananas are the most popular fruit in the USA • Mangos are the most popular fruit in the world.
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Green Fruit and Vegetables Why is this color good for you? • Keeps your bones and teeth strong • Keeps you healthy as you get older • Keeps your eyes healthy and your vision health healthy
Did you know? • Asparagus was first grown in Greece about 2,500 years ago. • Lettuce is never canned, dried or frozen. It is only served fresh. • Green grapes need to be picked at just the right moment of ripeness because they don’t sweeten after picking.
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Blue & Purple Fruit and Vegetables
Can you name all the fruits and vegetables? 4
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Why is this color good for you? • Keeps you healthy as you get older • Helps your memory function
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Fruits: 1 Pruple Grapes, 2 Blackberries, 3 Black currants, 4 Plum, 5 Blueberries Vegtables: 6 Eggplant, 7 Purple Pepper, 8 Purple Potatoe
• Helps you digest food
Did you know? • Blueberries grow on bushes. • Eggplants are almost 95% water. • Purple cabbage juice is an indicator. When it is mixed with an acid it will turn red, but when mixed with a base it turns blue.
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Why is gardening healthy? Gardening is a relaxing, meaningful activity and, done right, it can even help keep you healthy. Before you head out to the garden and get your hands dirty, dress for success. While getting out in the fresh air is healthy, make sure you protect yourself from the sun. Remember to apply sunscreen that shields both UVA and UVB rays. Whether you’re hauling and spreading soil and mulch or bending
and twisting while weeding, you’ll give all your major muscle groups a good workout while gardening. Head off any problems by taking a few minutes to stretch before you begin. Nature has a soothing effect on the mind and body. If you’re looking for stress reduction, relaxation, mental stimulation or a way to improve your mood, you just might find it with a dose of healthy gardening.
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Mulched Gardens How and why do we mulch? Mulched gardens are healthier, more weed free, and more drought-resistant then unmulched gardens, so you’ll spend less time watering, weeding, and fighting pest problems. Pull or cut weeds closely, if you are mulching for weed control. While not strictly necessary, it will help the mulch, and anything under it, to lay flat, and it will slow down the weed growth, because mulch prevents weed
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growth by excluding light. Add a generous thickness of mulch. The depth of mulch is really important if you want to retain moisture and prevent weed growth. Aim for at least two to four inches (5-10cm) of depth. Spread the mulch with a rake as needed for an even layer. Pull back the mulch from an area when you wish to plant something new.
Planting a Seed How do we plant a seed? Most seeds need similar growing conditions when they’re first starting out. When the seeds sprout and grow into plants, they’ll have more specific needs in terms of soil, sun, and temperature conditions. Each seed will need 1-2 inches of space to germinate and take root. Leaving about 1/2 inch of space, the top of the growing medium and the top of the ground, plant your seeds in a sunny, ventilated area with a steady, warm temperature.
Keep the seedlings healthy. As the seeds sprout into seedlings, you’ll see thin green stems emerge from the growing medium. Keep them moist at all times and make sure the temperature never drops below the recommended level. Weed out the weaker seedlings. After a week or two, weed out the weaker-looking seedlings so that the stronger ones have more room to grow.
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Photosynthesis
sunlight
oxygen
carbon dioxide
water
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Do you know why plants need water?
What is photosynthesis? The green parts of plants are made green through chlorophyll, which also collects sunlight. The energy from the collected sunlight is stored as food for the plant, which can then convert it to energy for growing, flowering and fruiting.
All living things need water to stay alive, and plants are living things! Plants need much more water than many living things because plants use much more water than most animals. Plants also contain more water than animals - plants are about 90% water.
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Note the progress of your garden! MON
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TUES
WED
THURS
FRI
Here are stickers of the fruits and vegetables that will be in your garden:
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How can we use composting? Composting is fun. It’s also easy. Let’s learn about how we make compost and how we use it to grow great gardens. Compost is ready to use when it is dark, brown, and crumbly with an earthy odor. It would not be moldy and rotten. Crumbly compost will be sort of fluffy; it does not need to be decomposed to a point of being powdery. The original materials that went into the compost pile should
no longer be recognizable in finished compost, except for some woody pieces. The temperature of the finished compost should be the same as the outside air temperature, and the material should not reheat. You will see earthworms and other insects now that the temperature is lower. If your compost is still hot, smells like ammonia, or you can still recognize much of the original material which went into the pile, then it is not ready to use yet. Once the compost appears finished, let it sit for at least 3 weeks to make sure the decomposition process has stabilized.
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This person is holding a handful of compost. The dark, earthy-smelling stuff is rich in nutrients. Plants love it!
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How to use compost to let plants grow
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Use Compost as Mulch
You can use compost as a mulch around garden plants, like this rose bush. Mulch protects the soil and shades out weed seeds. Nutrients are washed out into the soil with each rain to feed the roots of plants.
Mix Into Planting Hole
Compost is great for mixing into the soil when you are planting a new plant like this flower! It helps a sandy soil hold moisture and nutrients better and improves clay soils too.
Use Compost in Potting Soil Compost mixed with some sand makes a super potting soil for growing plants in containers.
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Composting 26
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We’re making a forest floor! Nature recycles leaves and plants. In a forest, leaves fall forming mulch that protects the soil. Over time they decompose into nutrients that feed forest plants.
Making a Compost Bin You can recycle leaves and other plant materials at home by setting up a compost bin. We will be making one at school!
Setting Up the Bin First select a spot to set up your bin. It should be out of the way but convenient to reach with plenty of room to work around. Some good places would be near your garden or in a back corner of the yard. It is also a good idea to choose a location close to a source of water.
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Compost Recipe Recipe Ingredients: Air Water Brown stuff Green stuff
Don’t Use: Meat Bones Cheese Pet droppings Milk Fats Oils Diseased plants
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Why these ingredients? The micro-organisms that recycle plant parts need brown stuff and green stuff to munch on and water to live and work.
What is brown stuff and green stuff?
Why can’t we use certain ingredients? Don’t use meat, milk products because pets and other animals may try to dig them up out of your compost bin. Also don’t use diseased garden plants. They can spread disease back into the garden later when you use the compost.
Brown stuff is dead, dried plant parts like leaves and pine needles. Brown stuff is high in the element carbon. Green stuff is fresh, living parts like grass clippings, kitchen vegetable scraps, weeds and other plants. Green stuff is high in the element nitrogen.
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Know your ratios Add Leaves It is easiest to build our compost bin in layers of ingredients. Start with the brown stuff by spreading a layer of leaves or pine needles about 6 inches thick. (Hint: this page is 6 inches thick!)
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Carbon Sources Here are some sources of carbon along with their carbon-nitrogen ratio. You can use these numbers to better determine how much brown and green stuff you should use to make the best mix for composting.
Dried leaves Pine needles Newspaper Sawdust
60:1 90:1 125:1 625:1
Shovel the Soil Then sprinkle a shovelful of soil or compost to add microorganisms to the bin.
Watering Each layer gets a good sprinkling of water to wet the ingredients. It is important to wet each layer as you build it. Repeat each of the layers until the bin is full and then.....
Add Grass Clippings Next, for the green stuff, add a layer of grass clippings a few inches thick. It is helpful to mix the layers up a little as you make them.
Nitrogen Sources Here are some sources of nitrogen along with their carbon-nitrogen ratio. Once again, you can see that the ratio varies a lot between the different ingredients.
Food Scraps Grass clippings Coffee grounds Horse manure
15:1 18:1 20:1 25:1
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Draw your own stickers of what goes into your compost bin!
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Can you draw a compost “critter�? Now tiny microorganisms (that you cannot see without a microscope) go to work breaking down the organic matter into compost. Later, as the compost cools down, you may see larger organisms such as millipedes, sowbugs, earthworms and others. Compost is teeming with living things!
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Trench Composting 34
Dump and Shovel Start by placing leaves in the trenches between raised beds, or in the pathways through your garden. By the end of the gardening season these leaves will be mostly decomposed and can be scooped up and placed around garden plants as an excellent mulch. Or, you can mix them into the planting beds to improve the soil.
Dig and Cover Start by digging a hole about 18� deep. Place fruit, vegetable scraps and coffee grounds from the kitchen in the hole. Don’t use meat, fat, milk or eggs because pets or wild critters will try to dig them up for lunch! Next, cover the scraps with soil to bury them and
fill the hole. Now you can make more compost pockets in other locations! After about a month or two you can plant a flower or maybe a tomato plant on the spot where you make the compost pocket. Then watch it grow!
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We can get started in class or at home! These seedling pots require no staples, glue, tape or origami skills. Recycle your old newspapers and get your seeds off to a good start in these pots. They can be put into the ground with the young seedlings, minimising root disturbance. The newspaper breaks down over time and the plants roots will grow through the newspaper.
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Step 1 If you are using large newspaper, rip in half. Turn piece of newspaper so the long side is facing you.
Step 2 Fold in half, left to right.
Step 3 If you are using large newspaper, rip in half. Turn piece of newspaper so the long side is facing you.
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Step 4 Fold it in half again, left to right.
A
Step 5 Now fold the bottom right corner (marked with an “A” in Step four) up to the middle along the spine. The crease in the center shown by the red line, was the bottom in Step four. See how the “A” has moved up now?
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Step 6 If you are using large newspaper, rip in half. Turn piece of newspaper so the long side is facing you.
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Step 7 Open the wings up to make a smooth shape like this. Do it to both sides.
Step 8 Open the wings up to make a smooth shape like this. Do it to both sides.
Step 9 Fold them in again.
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Step 10 Now flip it over and repeat Steps eight and nine. It should look like this when you are done.
Step 11 Fold the top flaps down and crease them well.
Step 12 Now you can open up your pot! Make sure to square the bottom so it can sit well.
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