Club Day. The Nature Version.

Part of getting back into the summer-winding-down swing of things is getting the children's clubs back up and running on a more consistent basis.  We kicked off the 2013-2014 club year with the first Nature Club and a trip out to the community garden to check out how wild, luscious and abundant the tomato plants the Club started from seed had become.  I wanted the Club to have some sort of a connection between the seeds we planted and the pizza we soon will make, most of which coming from the pizza garden we dreamed up so many months ago. 

We also "foraged" our own snack by searching for cucumbers hiding underneath their lovely large green leaves, digging for carrots, and discovering the last offerings from the pea plants (peas in September seems unreal).

While we munched on our found goodies, we talked about the important role of bees.  We talked about how the bees pollinate the plants so that they will bear fruit, and how they might unknowingly cross-pollinate them and create fruit that looks a wee bit different than expected (like the few baseball-sized Roma tomatoes we found - they look suspiciously like a mix between my Romas and the neighbour's beefsteak tomatoes).  We also talked about how the cucumbers protect themselves by being slightly prickly.

In the next couple of meetings, I'd like to make cheese with the group (now that I know how to do it), and then make our garden pizza.  Looking forward to the upcoming mouth-watering meetings!