Gardening in the Great Indoors

Who needs warm weather to grow a garden? While mother nature is taking her time sending Spring to our northern states, the students from Green Central Park Elementary in Minneapolis, MN are rolling up their sleeves to plant their American Heart Associaiton Vertical Teaching Garden.

Instead of normal planter boxes that stay outside, the vertical garden grows in the classroom with the help of a growing light. Which makes it perfect for schools that are still waiting for the ground to thaw. Kids still learn about healthy nutrition and get all the fruits and veggies they can eat without having to take a step outside!

Check out  this photo blog from the  budding gardeners at Green Central as they  walk you through their special plant day event!

We got to plant and put signs in that garden at Green Central.”  -Shani

“We were putting our hands in the bucket and somebody else was putting water on.” -Christian

“Se sentía fría en el agua.” -Shirley

“We put our hands in the dirt and we squished the dirt and mixed water.” -Lucia

“Then we planted seeds in a bucket.”  -Periana

“It was fun because we got to plant the seeds.”  -Carla

“We were putting dirt in the cells for the plants.” -Alex

“Plantamos plantas para plantar los vegetales.” -Andrea

“I see ya’ll planting seeds.” -Kemarius

“It was fun playing in the dirt because it was wet and squishy.” -Aquileo

“It was exciting because we put dirt in the boxes.” -Carla

“We had a rectangle with a handle. It was called a tamper.” – Everyone

“The tags are for the plants to know what are the plants.” -Lucia

“It’s like a nametag for the plant.” -Kemarius

“If we didn’t know which seed was planted, we wouldn’t know what was planted. We might not take care of it right.” -Ms. Maggie

“After they put the dirt in the planter then they put the seeds on top.” -Leslie

“We put dirt in them and we smashed the dirt down so it would be smooth for the plants.” -Periana

“We had a lot of fun because we got to be on TV.” -Shani

“I’m making holes for the seeds so we could bury the seeds and they will start going into plants.” -Aquileo

“We used a pencil to do the holes in the dirt.” – Leslie

“We made little holes so the plants can sprout into a beautiful fruit or vegatable.” -Periana

“People are planting because they want to see their beautiful plants. It’s really fun in the Magic Garden.” -Aquileo

 

“Its finished! We planted beans, radishes and arugula.” -Leslie

“The plants are growing!” -Carla

“The signs are telling which plants are growing.” -Carla

“Nosotros plantamos muchas semillas y cuando crecen vamos a comer los vegetales y las hierbas.” -Alex

A Veggie to Plant for Heart Health

It’s gardening season and it’s one of my favorite times of year.  It’s a proven way to get your kids to eat more fruits and vegetables, but an important point is to first get them involved in gardening.  And as a mom to two kids, I am constantly trying to come up with new ways to encourage my kids to eat more fruits and vegetables through gardening. My kids each have their own likes and dislikes and each with a different willingness to try new things.  But a way to expand their likes and dislikes is to get them in the garden.  Here are some ways to start:

• Grow a garden together.  My kids get excited about gardening because I get excited about gardening.  Kids will learn more from what you do than what you say to do.  And if you “do” gardening, they are going to want to do that with you too.  It’s never too late or early to start with your kids.  When my own kids were one year old, they were outside with me and as they grew, they wanted to be in the garden with me.  I still have a picture of my daughter “planting” her favorite vegetable in the garden at two years old. 

• Design your garden together.  What are your kids into?  Legos, paper and crayons, cutting and designing with paper, or even computer games?  All of those methods can be used to design a garden.  The key is to find what they are interested in and use that as a platform to work together.  If you want to see how my kids used Legos to design our garden, I recently wrote about it on my blog.  Also, go to your local library and find kid-friendly gardening books with pictures.  One of my favorites is the American Grown book by First Lady Michelle Obama.  Using visuals can be very inspiring to anyone, especially children. 

• How do you figure out what to grow?  You don’t need to start with a large garden, but when you are thinking about gardening, it’s a perfect time to take your kids with you to the local nursery and pick out seeds to grow together.  Start with foods they like to eat and grow ingredients from them, but also encourage them to try one new vegetable in the garden as an experiment.  And if they are old enough, let them come up with a plan for how to prepare it as a meal. 

One vegetable that has surprised my kids is Swiss chard.  It’s a dark, leafy green and a member of the beet family and it is packed with potassium for healthy hearts and blood pressure.  We have tried it in cheese quesadillas (just chop up the leaves and sprinkle over the cheese) as well Fruity Chardy Salad.  Both went over very well in our house – my kids were both amazed that they actually liked it!  But they would not have tried if we would not have planted it and we would not have planted it had I not suggested that we try a new vegetable in the garden.  It all starts with a little encouragement.

Fruity Chardy Salad

Estimated time: 15 minutes

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

• 6-8 Swiss chard leaves, torn
• 8 fresh strawberries, sliced
• 1/3 of a fresh cantaloupe, peeled and diced
• 2 tablespoons raspberry vinaigrette                       

Make it:

1. Layer chard, strawberries and cantaloupe cubes on four separate plates.    
2. Drizzle salad dressing over the top of the salads.

Here are some ways to involve your child in cooking this recipe:

• Slice strawberries with plastic knife.
• Slice cantaloupe with plastic knife.
• Wash chard and dry it.
• Tear chard.
• Tossing ingredients together.

What can you get out and grow with your family?

 

Jen Haugen, RD, LD

Registered Dietitian and Mom to Riley and Emma

Check out her blog at http://jenhaugenrd.wordpress.com

Teaching Gardens are Budding in Long Beach!

 

We cannot say thank you enough to our nutrition allies at the California Endowment. Thanks to their generosity, the city of Long Beach, California is teeming with new Teaching Gardens and happy budding gardeners. Check out what Kathlyn Mead, C.O.O. of the Endowment had to say about her Teaching Gardens experience!

On March 26, I joined our partners at the American Heart Association (AHA) to celebrate the success of Teaching Gardens making health happen in Long Beach Unified School District. AHA Teaching Gardens are flourishing in Long Beach schools, teaching young students how to plant seeds, nurture growing plants, harvest the food and, ultimately, understand the value of the role that communities play in creating opportunities for healthy eating choices.

  To celebrate the groundbreaking of this new garden at Garfield Elementary School, students, faculty, and parents joined together for a Plant Day and the chance to get their hands dirty. Superintendent of schools, Chris Steinhauser, came out to join the fun and commend the principal, teachers, and children for their commitment to growing, harvesting and healthy eating. He vocalized support to grow Teaching Gardens in every school in his district, the third largest in California!

Throughout the morning, students built planters, planted seedlings and watered the plants. Teaching Garden staff members discussed with students what dishes they could help their parents make with the very fruits and vegetables they were growing. It was truly wonderful to see all of the kids with their sleeves rolled up making health happen in their school.

And the highlight of the day for these kids? Placing worms into the soil to help provide fertilization and aeration to grow healthy plants. While it made some a bit squeamish, it was a fun, engaging way to get kids involved in the entire gardening process.

The truth is, exposing kids to gardening does more than provide some fun. It gives them the opportunity to learn about healthy foods and healthy eating. By building gardens with fresh fruits and vegetables, kids are in turn building healthier communities in Long Beach.

When The California Endowment initially partnered with the American Heart Association, we envisioned a model for school gardens that could be replicated across California and the nation. After the Teaching Gardens program was met with success in South Los Angeles, we are delighted to see it grow into the Long Beach community helping more kids live stronger and healthier lives.

– Kathlyn Mead

EV.P., Organizational Effectiveness & C.O.O

To see her original post click here.

Thank you Bonnie Plants!

Danke, Gracias, Merci, Thank you.

We’re saying it in every way we know how! This week we celebrated a wonderful partnership with our nutrition ally, Bonnie Plants. They play an instrumental part in the American Heart Association Teaching Gardens program, providing the initial seedlings that students plant in their gardens beds. Thanks to their generous in-kind donation, we are able to supply students and teachers with the most important tools that they need to teach and learn about good nutrition at no cost to the school.

We look forward to growing and cultivating new gardens with you, and wish you all the best.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you Bonnie Plants!

 

 

Happy Chicken Day!

 

Why settle for a garden when you could have a full blown farm instead? The kiddos at Moss Haven Elementary received a special treat today when their new chicken coop officially became a part of their American Heart Association Teaching Garden.

 

These poultry pros are using chickens to learn about nature, caring for animals, harvesting eggs, and more! The new chicks on the block are named Wilma, Betty, Lavern and Shirley. We think this is Betty saying hello to the kiddos!  

 Moss Haven students are plannning on hatching healthiness and growing goodness this year.  Today students from all classes worked together to plant a new spring crop for their Teaching Garden. Their school year is sure to be filled with tasty fruits and veggies, fresh eggs, and growing young minds.

 

We’re so proud of all the great learning that’s taking place at Moss Haven and we can’t wait to see what else they up their sleeve!

5 Tips To Making Healthy Eating More Fun

As a registered dietitian, I frequently get questions from parents on “how do I get my kids to eat their fruits and vegetables?”  As a mom myself, I sometimes struggle with my own kids who would live on desserts if that was possible.  But knowing that I am a registered dietitian, you can’t imagine that would happen in my house, could you?  Desserts of course, are okay in moderation but we want our kids to grow up healthy and strong to do all the things they want to do.  Here are some strategies to make healthy eating more fun that have worked for my family:

• Plan a garden.  Gardening can get kids to eat more fruits and vegetables, studies do show that.  And the fun part about right now, is that you can plan what you will plant!  Ask your kids what their favorite foods are and then help them determine what ingredients from those foods could be grown outside at your home.  Whether in containers, raised beds, or a tilled bed of soil, there are many opportunities to grow something with your child – even on the windowsill.  If their favorite food is pizza, then encourage them to grow tomatoes and basil.  If their favorite food is tacos, then grow cilantro and lettuce.  It doesn’t have to be complicated, in fact, I am all about keeping it simple.   Start small, invite them to be a part, care for the plants together and celebrate the harvest by making that favorite meal they told you about.

 

• Invite your kids to be sous chefs.  Each week in our house, my kids have the opportunity a couple of days a week to work on cutting up produce for the meal.  Not only does it get them in the kitchen with me so we can talk about our day, it gives them the opportunity to interact with their food.  They learn about it while touching it, seeing it, and smelling it while preparing it for the meal.   Soft fruits and vegetables are perfect for plastic disposable knives and safe for kids too.  As your kids get older, teach them how to hold a real knife safely with the claw and saw method. 

• Let your kids take ownership of the meal.  My kitchen is small and doesn’t hold too many people before we are bumping into each other, but that is no reason to shoo the kids out of the kitchen!  Let your kids choose the fruit and vegetable for the meal by letting them know what you have available.  Show them the options, throw in a comment about why that particular choice would be a nutritional one and let them choose.  By allowing for more ownership of the family meal, your kids will more likely eat the food they have chosen.

• Make fruits and vegetables the first thing you see in the refrigerator when you open the door.  What we see is what we want.  Or the opposite way – out of sight is out of mind.  Don’t hide the produce in the crisper drawer, make it the first thing you see when you open the refrigerator.  And once you bring it home from the supermarket, cut it up so it’s ready to go for the week ahead.  Hint – the kids can help with this too!  Challenge them to creating a rainbow of produce in the refrigerator.

 

• Create a theme night once a week.  This is fun in our house, each week either Friday night or Sunday night is designated as pizza night.  But it’s homemade pizza night, a night we encourage each family member to get creative in the kitchen together by creating an individual pizza with reduced-fat cheese, vegetables (everyone in our house has to choose one) and sauce on whole grain pizza crust.  It’s something our whole family looks forward to. 

Join my family in the United States of MyPlates Challenge which will feature a weekly healthy recipe on my blog along with tips to create a MyPlate meal, healthy shopping strategies and ideas to get your kids in the kitchen.  We will be eating our way across America in a healthy, balanced and fun way!  And if you join the challenge, you may become a featured guest blogger.   I would love to have you! 

-

Jen Haugen, RD, LD

Registered Dietitian and Mom to Riley and Emma

Check out her blog at http://jenhaugenrd.wordpress.com

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The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of The American Heart Association | American Stroke Association. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.

The American Heart Association’s blog is not intended to provide medical advice or treatment. Only your healthcare provider can provide that. The American Heart Association recommends that you consult your healthcare provider regarding your personal health matters. If you think you are having a heart attack, stroke or another emergency, please call 911 immediately

A Special Visit from Gardening Friends!

Look who dropped by the AHA National Center today! We love to have visitors, but these 2^nd graders from Moss Haven Elementary didn’t just come to chat, they came bearing gifts and surprised us with a special donation to Teaching Gardens!

These kiddos are gardening pros and use their American Heart Association sponsored Teaching Garden all the time. They’ve learned about nature, fruits, veggies, flowers, and the importance of eating balanced nutrition from garden based lessons.

They told us they love their school garden and think it’s fun to raise their own fruits and veggies. Which is why they decided to give back and raise money for the Teaching Gardens program. They asked their friends and family for help and even raised tips by doing cart-wheels for their neighbors! All together they raised over $150 for Teaching Gardens.

Vice President Laura Sol greeted the girls and thanked them for their wonderful donation!

 

They even presented us with this BEAUTIFUL poster!

 

We’re so grateful to these young volunteers and are so happy to see them blossoming into thoughtful young ladies!