Ohio Farm to School Monthly Newsletter

Issue # 10 |  August 2022

Welcome!

Parma City School District students growing sun gold tomatoes

Want to be featured in the next monthly newsletter and on Ohio’s Farm to School Websites? Share your F2S Success Stories with us! Submit your F2S Success Story here!

Fall Planting in the School Garden

Back in May, we shared how to prepare your garden for summer. Now that school is back in session, it’s time to think about these tips for fall planting. If the garden has been covered in black plastic all summer: Uncover and let garden air out for a couple of days. Pull any weeds that may have popped up around the plastic. Fill raised beds up with needed additional soil (will likely need to add 10-20% of total soil annually). Lightly fertilize prior to planting and incorporate fertilizer into soil. If the garden has been in use all summer: Pull weeds and plants that grew over the summer Follow steps 2-4 above. Photo (above): Raised bed garden getting set up for fall growing

Ohio School Garden Fall Planting

Notes for fall planting in school gardens: While all crops in this chart are cold tolerant, they will all benefit from plastic or fabric row cover to protect against extreme cold temperatures. None of these crops are pollinator dependent. Check the back of your seed packet for planting depth. Generally, plant seeds about 3 times deep as they are wide. The information in this chart is adapted from this guide. Stay updated on central Ohio gardening information Contact your local Ohio State University Extension office or Central State University Extension office for additional gardening questions. Photo: Radishes growing in a school garden

Celebrate National Farm to School Month in October with the Great Apple Crunch!

Looking for a fun way to support Farm to School, Ohio farmers, and resilient communities? Join the annual Great Apple Crunch on October 13! It’s simple and easy to participate. Register at https://go.wisc.edu/uzj4eq, purchase local apples, and celebrate your Crunch in October.   Get FREE Crunch stickers and the Crunch Guide when you register! Anyone can join “the Crunch heard around the region”, including schools, early childhood education sites, after school and 4H clubs, farmers’ markets, colleges, Extension offices, and hospitals across Ohio. Questions? Contact Haley Scott.

Summer Crunch Highlights

Parma City School District Summer Sun Gold Tomato Project For the third year in a row, Parma City School District’s Nutrition Services has partnered with the Parma PTA and purchased tomato plants from their annual geranium sale. In previous years, they gave the plants to families at food distributions. However, this year, they decided to do something a little different! Photo (right): Max is harvesting his first batch of Sun Gold tomatoes!

PCSD purchased over 700 Sun Gold tomato plants and distributed them to all 14 elementary schools. Every kindergarten student got a plant to take home. Students then joined a Google Classroom, where they could participate in fun, interactive lessons and videos throughout the summer. They teamed up with Spice Field Kitchen, a non-profit that manages their school garden at Pleasant Valley Elementary.  They created fun videos about caring for the Sun Gold tomato plants, which included planting, staking, pruning, and harvesting. In addition to teaming up with Spice, they also worked with their Curriculum and Instruction Department, who helped tie the first-grade science curriculum into the classroom. Photo (above): Elsa is planting her Sun Gold tomato plant in a fabric bag!

The response to the project was great! The students enjoyed watching their hard work pay off as their plants grew taller and produced tomatoes. What fantastic gardeners the are! When the students return this school year as first graders, it is expected that they’ll be more likely to eat the Sun Gold tomatoes on fruit and veggie bars; and be one step ahead in their science classes! Photo (right): Harvesting lots of delicious Sun Gold tomatoes Photo (below): That’s one tall plant! Way to go, Collin!

Trumbull County Board of Developmental Disabilities Fairhaven School

Fairhaven students celebrated Ohio’s first summer Cucumber Crunch! Anyone who wants to show support for local farmers and summer foods is invited to crunch at any time this summer. Learn more about the Cucumber Crunch and register to participate here.  Here are pictures of Trumbull County Board of DD’s Crunch event!

Want to be featured in the next monthly newsletter and on Ohio’s Farm to School Websites? Share your F2S success stories with us! Submit your F2S Success Story here!

Congratulations to Ohio’s 2022 USDA Farm to School Grant Awardees 

USDA awards annual competitive Farm to School grants that support planning, developing, and implementing Farm to School programs. USDA’s Farm to School Grants are an important way to help organizations as they initiate, expand, and institutionalize Farm to School efforts. Congratulations to the two 2022 Ohio awardees! Find more information on USDA Farm to School grants and the 2022 awardees here.

Community Roots – Mount Vernon, Ohio  Grant Type: Implementation

Community Roots in Mount Vernon Ohio received an implementation grant to hire a Farm to School Coordinator and a Garden Coordinator, creation of a Farm to School Action Team, and collaboration with several community health and education organizations. The Mount Vernon City School District is home to 3,775 students in six elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school.

Cleveland Municipal School District – Cleveland, Ohio  Grant Type: Turnkey – Planning

The Cleveland Municipal School District (CMSD) received the turnkey-planning grant which will allow them to increase access to fresh local fruits and vegetables for students. It will also allow them to implement farm to school initiatives such as increasing taste testing of local foods in the cafeteria, creating benchmarks for fruit and vegetable consumption through participation using Department of Nutrition and local community data, and pilot a Farm to School salad bar across all 84 CMSD buildings. The district plans to embed the Farm to School plan into the District’s Wellness Committee to try to drive economic investment in local food producers, distributors and businesses.

News and Events

1. Ohio Farm to School Network Quarterly Meeting

Mark your calendar for the next Ohio Farm to School Network meetings on September 8 and December 8. Register for the September 8 meeting here.

State level updates will take place at 9:30-11AM, with region-specific discussions from 11AM-12PM. For more information on Ohio Farm to School, visit the website and Facebook page.

2. School Nutrition Association Expo & Education Event

Join school nutrition professionals across the state on September 28 at Cherry Valley Lodge and Ohio Event Center in Newark, Ohio. Make sure to stop by the Ohio Department of Education’s booth for Farm to School information. Stay updated on event information here.

Thank you to the following newsletter contributors:

Tim McDermott, Ohio State University Extension

Parma City School District

Trumbull County Board of Developmental Disabilities Fairhaven School

Authors:

Haley Scott, Ohio Farm to School Program Assistant, Ohio State University Extension

Lauren Preston, Ohio Farm to School Program Intern, Ohio State University Extension