Why do the leaves change color?

It's mid fall in Connecticut and the leaves have reached their peak blindingly vibrant reds, yellows, and purples. I've always felt the need to travel further north for this kind of spectacle, but driving and hiking around Hartford and Massachusetts has provided me with my fill of crisp autumn this year. The garden has been quiet lately with the exception of the red tailed hawk and the little black kitten (both of whom are undoubtedly having their fill of rodents) and the many little birds who have had a feast of our cover crops. We're looking forward to the piles of leaves (soon to be delivered to the garden) that will serve as the base for next year's stock of compost. Knowing that many youth still check this website and in celebration of the season change, I thought I'd post some links on why leaves change color. -Laura You'll find the basics here: From http://photoscience.la.asu.edu/photosyn/education/colorchange.html Science Made Simple For more detailed information try: http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/misc/leaves/leaves.htm

Cheering for Jiff at the Hartford Marathon

We are at the Hartford Marathon cheering for the runners. There were over 5,000 runners and we were looking for one specific person; Jiff Martin. She didn’t come until a lot of citizens passed by but we cheered for them too. Donna, Jazzimine, and Theresa were cheering for the people with purple shirts while everyone else were cheering for everyone. Donna and me went up ahead looking for Jiff but she didn’t show up. We were going to run with her until we met up with everyone else but we got tired of waiting and walked back. Then she showed up and screamed at the top of our lungs until she faded away. The cheer we were saying was "hey, hey what do say, your gonna make it all the way!" I think that the running marathon was related to Grow by seeing everyone looking healthy and what vegetables can do to you. There were even thirteen year olds running the marathon and I can barely run a mile and a half. As you see we were supporting Jiff buy holding the signs. Jonathan had a sign that said "keep your heart pumping" with a picture of a heart. -By: Rodney Fernandez

Pumkin Carving

Pumpkin carving In this photo we are carving pumpkins and my pumpkin was the best because I said it was and we were having so much fun. Also all the pumpkins we carved looked different from each other. If you were going to make seasonal local lasagna in winter, what could you put in it? How can you preserve summer vegetable to make a better lasagne in winter? On Thursday Shannon taught a lesson about seasonality. The lesson we learned about was how plants grow through the year. We talked about all kinds of plants that can last all though the winter. For example onions are one and there are a lot more like winter squash, apples, garlic, mushrooms, pears, potatoes, greenhouse tomatoes and last but not least you can't forget the turnips.- You can put carrots in it [a winter lasagna] and potatoes, parsnips, turnips, winter and winter squash by Theresa Vail

Seed Saving basics

On Wednesday October 6, 2004 Sister Janet came to Grow Hartford to tell us about seed saving. Seed saving is good because you save a lot of money instead of buying them. To save seeds you take a tomato slice it open with a knife then all the insides out and put it in a jar or cup then cover it with some kind of plastic wrap. -By: Jonathan Perez Seed saving workshop with Sister Janet. On Thursday we met a new person named Sister Janet we was learning about how to save seed over the winter. In the pictures I open a yellow tomato and squeeze the seed into a cup, then you take a glad wrap and put it over the cup. Take the tape and wrap it around the cup and write your name on it. You put them in a hot room and let them get all moldy. Then you wash them and you put then in an envelope they should be good for a year. What saving seeds means is that you can save seed from where you grow them - not from the store. We save seed because when the new year comes again we have to buy seed to grow them, but if you save them you don’t have to. I learned that you don’t have to buy seed if you just save them over the winter. The history of the seed is that seeds came on the scene 350 million years ago. Seeds as a food source, especially for mammals, gave the energy needed to maintain body temperature. If not for seeds, mammals would never have developed from small creatures into wolves, polar bear, elephant and humans. Here is the quiz Donna gave to the group after Shannon's seasonality lesson 1) List 5 thing that can keep in storage till March: (Potato, Carrots, Beets, Garlic, and Pumpkins.) 2) Who remembers where Potatoes were really from: (Peru) 3) What is the thing that everyone at GROW eats. Onion, Eggplant, or Collards: (Collards). 4) What did Shannon say about what you can do with pumpkin seeds? (How you can dry them and eat them). 5) Why do you have to take the seed out of the pumpkins before you carve it?: (So it can crave easily). 6) What did we do when sister Janet came? (Learned how to save seeds).

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Javi needed this after football practice! 

Jerica loves the pancakes and the potatoes. What purple homefries?? 

Shannon, is that a smiley face (fresh from the garden) raspberry pancake? 

Our Garden Breakfast

On Saturday morning we had a big breakfast before we started work. Including eggs, potatoes, Raspberry pancakes and orange juice. I helped cook the pancakes and the potatoes. Everything was so good!!!! Our three favorite girls didn’t come (Theresa, Donna, and Precious) and neither did Jonathan. They missed out on some good FREE food!!! Some foods we used from our garden for our breakfast were chard, raspberries, rosemary, and onions. Jerica, Javier, sis Michelle, Shannon, Laura and me (Jazzmine) all helped make breakfast. We cooked and ate our breakfast in front of our garden, and we cooked all our food on a portable, 2 burner, had to be lit with a match stove. It was all fun though. Jazzmine Breakfast

Sister Michele is a great cook! 

Our last harvest! 

Making breakfast at the garden