Ida B Harvests Art & Veggies

Here at the height of Spring, Ida B Wells High School’s garden has seen a lot of action! First, on May 24th we celebrated the fourth annual Art & Poetry Cabaret, where the school garden was beautifully represented. Students, teachers and neighbors enjoyed garden-grown green salad, artichokes and fava beans as they perused and purchased student art work, and enjoyed the fashion show and poetry reading. Guests even toured the garden, checking out the harvest as well as the small spring sprouts coming up!

Special thanks to NoPa Restaurant who donated a dinner for two as a raffle item, and to volunteer Jean Cooney who made that happen!

Students’ sculptures from the show:

Next, Ida B Wells students explored their roots! Fresh, organic roots and tubers! We harvested carrots:

And a mix of tubers, including red potatoes, yellow potatoes and mashua. Mashua (the long white root) is a traditional tuber crop from the Andes Mountains (just like potatoes!) that is related to nasturtiums. The leaves look just like nasturtium leaves.

Then, we made french fries! Yum:

Finally, we planted seed potatoes for next fall’s crop.