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What are we GROWing in the cafeteria?

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Introducing Chickering GROWS Powisset Pizza Kits

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Introducing Chickering GROWS Powisset Pizza Kits

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In partnership with Powisset Farm, Chickering GROWS is GrOWing a pizza garden this spring! We can’t wait to grow with you!

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In partnership with Powisset Farm, we will be GROWing organic tomatoes, peppers and basil this Spring! The kit includes a four-pack of garden-ready, organic starters: two tomatoes, two peppers, and one pot of basil. Planting instructions and  Powisset Pizza and Pizza Dough Recipes!
Powisset Farm has both visited Chickering and hosted Chickering students at the farm this school year! Farmer Tim from Powisset will be helping us plant a pizza garden in the Outdoor Classroom! Additionally, Dover PTO has purchased a hydroponic planter to grow pizza toppings year round in the Chickering Cafe! YUM! We cannot wait to GROW with you!

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Powisset Farm is a Trustees of Reservations property. The farm dates back more than 300 years. In the 1600s, colonists claimed the land and farmed it steadily until the 1800s. Eventually, Amelia Peabody, a great believer in public access to open spaces, purchased the land; later, it came into the Trustees’ hands. Powisset Farm operates a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program here in Dover! A CSA is where members pay for shares of fruits and vegetable that the farm produces. After you oink at the pigs and cluck at the chickens, you can take the 1-mile loop trail through fields, check out what is growing, then head to an oak forest, passing two brooks, vernal pools, and wetlands on the 108.5-acre property!

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Basil is native to tropical regions in Asia and has been cultivated for thousands of years!

It is related to mint and has the square stems typical of this plant family.

An essential flavoring in Mediterranean cooking, basil is one of the main ingredients in Italian pesto. It is also used in Asian cuisines, including Thai and Vietnamese dishes.

Do not refrigerate fresh basil. Instead, keep cut stems of basil at room temperature in a jar of water.

Source: KidsGardening.org

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The world’s hottest pepper is reputed to be the Carolina Reaper, with a Scoville rating of 1,569,300 SHU – 500 times hotter than a Tabasco pepper!

The jalapeno pepper is the official state pepper of Texas.

Bell peppers are nutritional all-stars! A large red bell pepper delivers three times the vitamin C of an orange, along with Vitamin A and the healthful antioxidant lycopene.

Source: KidsGardening.org

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1. Tomatoes aren’t always red. They can be yellow, pink, purple, black and even white!

2. Found at Walt Disney World Resort, the largest single tomato plant in the world is bigger than an Olympic size swimming pool!

3. It’s thought that tomatoes originally came from Peru.

4. Did you know Heinz Tomato Ketchup has a speed limit? If the  sauce pours at more than 0.028mph when it’s in the Heinz factory, it’s considered too runny and rejected!

5. La Tomatina is an annual festival in Spain, where people throw 150,000 tomatoes at each other. Sounds messy!
6. The largest ever tomato on record was picked in Oklahoma in 1986. It weighed over 3.5kg – that’s more than the average UK newborn baby!

7. In Ohio, USA, they love tomatoes so much that tomato juice is the official state drink!

8. There are around 10,000 varieties of tomatoes worldwide!

9. The first tomatoes in Europe may originally have been yellow. They were first referred to in writing as “pomo d’oro“, meaning “golden apple”.

10. Tomato seedlings have been grown in space before!
Source: NationalGeographicKids.org

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PLANTING DAY at Chickering was a success! 

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PLANTING DAY at Chickering was a success! 

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THANK YOU CHICKERING STUDENTS! Classrooms stopped by over recess periods to check out what is happening in the garden and help with spring planting. The strawberry garden was planted; colorful annuals and gems were added to the fairy garden; a bamboo teepee was added for the new mini pumpkin patch; and students planted sunflower and pumpkin seeds in peat pots that will be kept indoors until ready to transplant!

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Strawberry Kits are Here! We cannot wait to GROW with you! 

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Strawberry Kits are Here! We cannot wait to GROW with you! 

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Keep checking in on the Outdoor Classroom Padlet to Post Photos, Pose Questions, Make Comments, and learn more about GROWing strawberries!

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Chickering GROWS Tulip Project in full bloom!

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A bare root strawberry crown has three main sections:

Top/Leaves

This is the portion of the crown where leaves will eventually sprout. Bare root crowns may arrive with or without leaves. Sometimes they are brown and wilted, other times they are small and green. Either is fine as long as there is no mold.

Crown

While the whole bare root strawberry is often called a “strawberry crown,” the crown is technically just the very middle of the plant. This woody central brown section is where the magic of strawberry growth all begins. It is also the key location where your strawberry planting can get messed up if you bury the crown too deep, the plant will suffocate or rot. If you plant it too shallow, the crown will dry out and the roots will get exposed. The soil level should be perfectly covering the bottom third portion of the crown so just the top growing points are above ground.

Roots

The roots of a strawberry are pretty straightforward. They typically arrive long, moist, and hair-like. They can be pruned before planting to prevent “J-root”, which is what happens when the roots are accidentally looped upward in a planting hole.

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You have your GROWS kit, have potting soil, and are ready to plant! But where is the seed, where is the bulb? Strawberry plants start as bare ROOTS! Soak the roots to help them rehydrate and break their dormant cycle. Gently place them root first through the perforated round openings of the grow bag. Keep the crown of the plant at soil level. Keep them moist and let the roots establish themselves for two weeks lying the bag flat before hanging! Do not expect the plant to leaf out for several weeks. Bare root strawberries usually take about 3 months to produce berries from the time of planting.

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Turn your food scraps, herbs and spices into a fun family project and a safer alternative to Easter egg dye!

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It is APRIL and the tulips are sprouting! Did you know that spring-flowering bulbs like tulips require a period of 8-16 weeks of chilling to initiate flower buds inside the bulb. If they do not chill, they may sprout foliage but no blooms!

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Watering the Bag O'Bloom hanging bag can be a little tricky. The water tends to quickly flow through the holes while your strawberry plant gets established. If you lack the patience or arm strength to water very slowly, try using a watering spike attached to a soda bottle!

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Pollinators not only boost yield, they also improve strawberry quality and shelf life! Strawberries can be pollinated by insects or by the wind, but they can also self-pollinate, a process called selfing. Each berry is a collection of many tiny fruits, so pollen must be delivered to each of the hundreds of ovaries inside the flower. Bees make it better as the seeds can be larger and more plentiful when they transfer pollen between plants, in contrast to selfing. Strawberries pollinated by bees are redder, brighter and last longer!

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Did you know that pollinating insects take refuge in leaf piles and debris! Be patient to do your spring cleanup until temps are warmer! Consider leaving leaf mulch in place on your gardens. Plants can easily grow up through it. And leaves decompose over time and help feed the soil and plants!

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Get excited for the Chickering GROWS strawberry kit! The spring kit includes 10 strawberry plants and 1 Bag O'Bloom Grower Bag with handle, along with growing instructions for $10/kit. Chickering GROWS participants will be harvesting sweet, delicious strawberries all summer long!

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Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside. A berry has its seeds on the inside.

The average strawberry has 200 seeds.

Most strawberry plants reproduce from runners despite the fact that seeds can grow into plants.

Strawberries can be white, blue/purple, yellow/golden as well as red/pink.

Strawberries are the first fruit to ripen in the spring.

Strawberries are a member of the rose family.

There are 3 different types of strawberries: June-bearing, ever-bearing and day-neutral.

There are 103 species of strawberries.

Strawberries contain more vitamin C than oranges.

Strawberries at room temperature are sweeter than cold strawberries.

Do not wash strawberries until ready to eat them as it speeds up spoiling.

Over 53 percent of seven to nine-year-olds picked strawberries as their favorite fruit.

Ninety-four percent of US households consume strawberries - eating 3.4 pounds of fresh strawberries each year plus another 1.8 pounds frozen per capita.

California produces 80% of the strawberries in the US.

There is a museum in Belgium just for strawberries.

Strawberries were found in Rome in 234 BC. Ancient Romans believed that strawberries alleviated symptoms of melancholy, fainting, all inflammations, fevers, throat infections, kidney stones, bad breath, attacks of gout, and diseases of the blood, liver and spleen.

To symbolize perfection and righteousness, medieval stone masons carved strawberry designs on altars and around the tops of pillars in churches and cathedrals.

In parts of Bavaria, country folk still practice the annual rite each spring of tying small baskets of wild strawberries to the horns of their cattle as an offering to elves. They believe that the elves, are passionately fond of strawberries, will help to produce healthy calves and an abundance of milk in return.

Madame Tallien, a prominent figure at the court of the Emperor Napoleon, was famous for bathing in the fresh strawberry juice. She used 22 pounds per basin. Needless to say, she did not bathe daily.

In medieval times, strawberries were served at important functions to bring peace & prosperity.

The fear of strawberries is called fragariaphobia.

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Did you know that strawberries come from a small flowering plant called Fragaria? While called a fruit, they are actually an enlarged flower called an Achene. Edible fruits form when the flowers have been pollinated by bees and other insects!

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The fruit of the strawberry plant is packed with beneficial nutrients and a dietary source of vitamins and minerals! One cup of strawberries weighs approximately 144 grams and contains between 45 and 50 calories. Strawberries are over 90% water, 7% carbohydrates, about 2% fiber, and less than 1% each of protein and fat!

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There are different theories as to how strawberries got their name! One such is that woodland pickers strung them on pieces of straw to carry them to market. Others believe that the surface of the fruit looks as if it is embedded with bits of straw. The name "strawberry" comes from the Old English word “streawberige” or the Anglo-Saxon “streoberie”, meaning to strew, because the runners stray in all directions and look as if they are strewn on the ground. The genus name Fragaria, derives from the Latin word for strawberry, “fraga.” And, “fraga” itself is a derivative of “fragum,” which means “fragrant”!

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There are five basic anatomical structures that make up a strawberry plant! They are the leaf, root system, crown, stolon (also called a “runner”), and daughter strawberry plant.

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Did you know that strawberries are perennials, which means they can be productive year after year! Strawberries reproduce through a combination of seeds and runners. In the winter, you can move them to a sheltered location like an unheated garage or basement. Or, you can tuck them into a garden bed and cover them with mulch for added protection.

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Have you noticed tiny purple flowers popping up around the school? We are starting to see the most beautiful early spring blooms! The bright purple, low-growing crocuses grow only a few inches off the ground. These bulbs are symbolic of the passing of winter and the coming of spring!

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In the month of March, there is not much for birds to eat in our landscapes, so keep feeders filled! The birds will pay back your good deed by eating caterpillars and bugs in the spring, eliminating the need for pesticides in your garden during the growing season!

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Paperwhites are fragrant, white, winter-blooming flower bulbs. Planting paperwhites now will give you sweet fragrant clusters of winter flowers for the upcoming holiday season! Paperwhites are super easy to grow and typically bloom in 4-6 weeks. You an find them at your local garden center or grocery store!

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Carol Conley helped her neighbor plant bulbs too!

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Planted bulbs last week!

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Did you keep your bulb outside or near a window? It is time to force the bulb into dormancy for a few weeks before starting a new flowering cycle.

Trim off the foliage about 1"-2" from the top of the bulbs. Place the bulb in a dry, dark place. Basements are good choices, and even the back of a closet. During this period, completely stop watering. Let your amaryllis "sleep" for 10-12 weeks.

Now it is time to start the growing cycle over just as you did when your first planted the bulb! Replace the soil with fresh mix, remove any dead leaves, and replant leaving the bulb shoulders exposed.

Place your bulb in bright light and give it one good drink of water. The combination of light and water will "wake up" the plant and encourage it to start growing again! When the first little leaves appear, and not before, begin watering regularly!

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 Chickering GROWS~ Amaryllis REGROW Project

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 Chickering GROWS~ Amaryllis REGROW Project

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Did you grow an Amaryllis last winter with Chickering GROWS? It is time to RE-GROW your amaryllis bulb!

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Thank you to the Dover Cultural Council for funding this project! 

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Chickering 3rd graders have painted dozens of nesting boxes to post at the school! Look out for bluebirds and chickadees moving to Dover this Spring. Learn more on the Birdhouse Project Padlet: https://padlet.com/chickering/TheBirdhouseProject!

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KEEP YOUR TULIP BULBS SAFE FROM PREDATORS

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Plant bulbs before the first hard frost

Interplant tulips among other unsavory bulbs, such as crocus or grape hyacinth, to provide a measure of safety

Add gravel to the soil to discourage digging rodents from going after the bulbs

Add a protective barrier around tulips like chicken wire

Add repellents to the garden, such as cayenne pepper or mint

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Delivery to Chickering on Friday, October 15th. 

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We can't wait to GROW with you! Keep checking in on Padlet to post photos of your garden, update your progress, and learn more about spring bulbs!

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part one: red tulips, yellow daffodils, blue muscari

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THANK YOU students and teachers for ALL your hard work!

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THANK YOU COA volunteers for helping us GROW! 

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THANK YOU COA volunteers for helping us GROW! 

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THANK YOU Outdoor Classroom Volunteers!

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Welcome to the Outdoor Classroom Padlet! The PTO-sponsored Outdoor Classroom provides a range of materials and opportunities to support Chickering teachers and educate and inspire students through experimentation and example!

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THANK YOU for donating bulbs to Chickering! 

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THANK YOU for donating bulbs to Chickering! 

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THANK YOU so much for your support to beautify Chickering School! Your donation helps purchase bulbs for the school. Together, students, teachers and our friends from the Council on Aging planted white and red tulips, yellow daffodils, purple crocus and blue hyacinth bulbs at Chickering!

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The GROWS tulip kit includes 10 Darwin Hybrid Tulips along with planting instructions for you to grow at home. Among the tallest of all tulips, Darwin Hybrids offer big, showy flowers with long stems, lovely pyramid shape, and brilliant colors! We would LOVE to see photos of your garden on the Outdoor Classroom Padlet!

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Can you imagine buying a tulip that cost as much as a house?!?

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Can you imagine buying a tulip that cost as much as a house?!?

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.atlasobscura.com/articles/semper-augustus-tulip.amp

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Adriaan Pauw was a powerful man. He was a director of the Dutch East India Company, the owner of an entire town, and a diplomat sent to the courts of France.

Today he's most often mentioned in connection with a flower.

Like many wealthy men in the Netherlands of the 17th century, Pauw kept tulips. In his garden, he had hundreds of them, gathered around a gazebo paneled with mirrors that multiplied clusters of flowers into armies of straight-standing stems. This was an ostentatious display of wealth: at the time, a tulip bulb could cost as much as a cow, a parcel of land, or even an entire house.

Among the most valuable tulips, there was one that was said to be more beautiful and more rare than all the others: the Semper Augustus. A mysterious collector owned almost all of them-and some tulip historians believe that collector was Pauw.

Tulips showed up in Europe in the 16th century, having traveled from their wild habitat in central Asia, through the Ottoman Empire, to Vienna. By the 1630s, the Dutch were obsessed.

In this decade, tulip prices spiraled insanely upwards: they were the Beanie Babies of their day, prized by collectors beyond their obvious worth. The most valuable bulbs produced "broken" flowers-instead of being one solid hue, the petals had streaks of color running across paler backgrounds. Of these, the Semper Augustus became the most famous, in part because it was most scarce: at one point, only 12 bulbs of the flower were said to exist.

But it was also beautiful. Its background color was pure white; the flames that ran along its petals were deep crimson.

"What usually happens when the tulip is broken is that you get a quite asymmetrical, uneven break," says Teresa Clements, Secretary of the Wakefield and North of England Tulip Society. What flower fans are looking for is a "perfect, symmetrical, even pattern" of pure color-a refined but vigorous flower.

"Most often, the two colors of broken tulips ran in long, continuous strips down the petals," writes Anna Pavord in The Tulip. But Semper Augustus was special: "the red color breaks into flakes, symmetrically set around the outsides of the petals." The rest of the flower complemented the bulb, too: "It had a slender stem that carried its flower well clear of its leaves and showed off its vivid colors to the best effect," writes Mike Dash in Tulipomania. Pavord calls the flower a "masterpiece."

In the 17th century, no one knew what made a tulip break. Trying to cultivate a broken tulip was like trying to win the lottery, a game of chance soaked in ritual. Growers believed if they fertilized their field with pigeon dung or plaster from old walls, they might produce a break. Others took a more direct approach, by sprinkling the soil with their preferred pigments, or tying a bulb that had produced a red flower with one that had grown white.

Few people ever actually saw a Semper Augustus flower. The man who held a near monopoly on the small supply-not everyone agrees it was Pauw-refused to sell his bulbs, which drove up the price. In 1638, one was advertised for 13,000 florins, the price of a nice house. That was the year the market for tulips in the Netherlands crashed.

In the 20th century, the cause of the beautiful breaks was finally identified. Viruses infect a tulip bulb and cause its second layer of color to be expressed only in parts of the flower. The viruses aren't good for tulips, exactly: broken tulips are not quite as vigorous as pure-colored ones. If those viruses are transmitted to lilies, they can kill the lilies, but the tulips can handle it.

Today, the Semper Augustus is long lost, but tulip lovers still grow broken tulips. Some, like the Habit de Noce, were first broken in the 1790s. "The difficulty is keeping them unbroken," says Clements. When English tulip lovers raise a good breeder tulip with good-shaped flowers and a pure base color, they send bulbs around the country to keep them virus-free. "Eventually they almost all break," says Clements. Most are bad breaks and have to be discarded. But some have those elusive qualities-symmetry and pure color flaming across the petal.

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The Most Beautiful Tulip in History Cost as Much as a House

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Adriaan Pauw was a powerful man. He was a director of the Dutch East India Company, the owner of an entire town, and a diplomat sent to the courts of France. Today he's most often mentioned in connection with a flower. Like many wealthy men in the Netherlands of the 17th century, Pauw kept tulips.

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learn more: kidsgardening.org

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Check out our Padlets from last year's GROWS initiatives! 

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FALL 2020  ZINNIAS & HYDROPONICS
https://padlet.com/community18/dqv2j60u36r1lk06

WINTER 2020-2021 AMARYLLIS & WINTER BULBS
https://padlet.com/chickering/GROWSWinterPadlet

SPRING 2021 TOMATOES BASIL & SEEDBALLS
https://padlet.com/chickering/GROWSSpringPadlet

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Welcome to the Chickering Fairy Garden! This playful and imaginative garden is made up of tiny houses, miniature accessories, twig fences, glass marbles, beautiful flowers and lots of imagination! The perfect garden to lure fairies... and kids of all ages!

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Thanks to the Dover Cultural Council & Dover PTO, GROWS Gives Back: The Birdhouse Project provided nesting box kits free of charge to the Chickering community last spring. Look out for bluebird and chickadee nesting boxes posted around town and at school! Check out the Birdhouse Project Padlet to post and view photos of nesting boxes, learn about the birds that inhabit them, explore ways to provide supportive habitats for our feathered friends, and help increase the local population of cavity-nesting birds: https://padlet.com/chickering/TheBirdhouseProject!

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Chickering GROWS and the Outdoor Classroom welcomes Dover Council on Aging (COA) members to grow alongside our students. Our shared goal is for students and seniors to experience increased wellness from the therapeutic qualities of gardening as well as create lasting and meaningful connections with one another!

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Tulips can be divided into about 150 various species, but there are more than 3,000 naturally occurring and genetically cultivated varieties of the flower worldwide. Tulips are known for bold colors and beautiful shapes, and most varieties are indeed almost perfectly symmetrical. A sepal is the outer parts of the flower that enclose a developing bud. Tulip blooms have three petals and three sepals, but since sepals are almost the same size and shape as petals, tulips appear to have six petals to a bulb!

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Chickering GROWS is a PTO-sponsored initiative that provides opportunities to learn about gardening at home while connecting with the Chickering community. Kids develop important life skills like patience and responsibility as they care for a living thing. In collaboration with the Outdoor Classroom, we offer different kits for ALL AGES throughout the school year. Students, teachers & staff and Dover Council on Aging (COA) members connect with one another through Padlet, as well as school garden activities. To learn more about Chickering GROWS, please visit our website: https://www.doverpto.org/chickering-grows! Post Photos, Pose Questions, Make Comments. We can't wait to GROW with you!

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Tulips are loved by painters, including Claude Monet. He captures their beauty in his 1886 oil painting Tulip Fields in Holland.

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A Turkish legend says that a prince named Farhad was love struck by a maiden named Shirin. When Farhad learned that Shirin had been killed, he was so overcome with grief that he killed himself - riding his horse over the edge of a cliff. It is said that a scarlet tulip sprang up from each droplet of his blood, giving the red tulip the meaning "perfect love." Tulips come in many colors, which have different meaning than the red tulip. Yellow tulips symbolize cheerful thoughts; white tulips say "I'm sorry"; purple represents royalty; and a multi-colored bouquet of tulips is said to be a compliment of the recipient's eyes!

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Did you know that tulips are edible! Tulips are actually a part of the lily family, which also includes onion, garlic and asparagus! The petals are edible and have been used as an onion substitute and to make wine. During World War II, tulips and tulip breads were eaten by those who couldn't afford other foods. WARNING: if you do eat a tulip, be sure to use organic, unsprayed flowers and remove the bitter, yellow core of the bulb as it is poisonous!

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One of the most interesting colors of a tulip variety is the deep purple of the Queen of the Night tulip. The flower is so dark it appears black in some lights!

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Originally from Persia and Turkey, tulips were brought to Europe in the 16th century. The name tulip comes from the Turkish word for gauze, with which turbans were wrapped, and reflected the turban-like appearance of a tulip in full bloom. By the 17th century, tulips grew to be so popular in Europe that certain varieties, especially those with multicolored petals, became the most expensive flower in the world! The result was a frenzy that resulted in single bulbs selling for more than a workers annual wage. Tulip mania was short-lived, however, and quickly led to an
economic crisis affecting Holland’s entire economy. Today, the Netherlands is the largest producer and exporter of tulips worldwide, growing and exporting nearly 3 billion bulbs a year. At one point in Holland's history, tulips were its 4th biggest export, behind cheese, gin and herring!