Crop%Planning%at%School%Grown%

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AGENDA!% 8 %Intro%to%School%Grown% 8 How%our%program%works% 8 %Crop%Planning% %Big%QuesDons% 8 %School%Grown%Field%Map% 8 %School%Grown%Crop%Plan% 8 %Q%&%A%with%Cali,%Orlando%and%KaDe%

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ICE%BREAKER!% %5%QuesDons% What%do%you%like%to%cook%at%home%for%yourself?%% What%food%would%you%make%for%someone%on%your%first%date?%% What s%your%favorite%restaurant%and%why?%% If%you%could%only%eat%one%thing%for%the%rest%of%your%life%what%would%it%be?% What s%a%food%that%reminds%you%of%your%childhood?%%

School Grown Paid Work + School Credit + Make Friends

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What has School Grown meant to Cali: - Learned a lot of things that I never thought I would - When I started I didn t know anything about growing produce, now I know about a lot of different vegetables and how to grow them and take care of them - Met a lot of new people and new friends - This job has helped me with my other job learning customer service - Taught me about willpower and not given up - Taught me about being outgoing - Learned more about yourself

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Why its important to have a crop plan:

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are you growing it for? Where s the crop going to go? What are your labour constraints? What are your space limitations? What do you really really like?

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are you growing it for? Revenue generation, high yield, maximum student engagement?

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are you growing it for? Maximum revenue generation: Focus on high value crops high price point relative to the time in the field and/or labour they take - Radishes - 28 days for $3/bunch (quick!) - Garlic - 8 months for $3/bulb (low labour!)

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are you growing it for? Maximum revenue generation: High value (quick): radishes, any cut greens (spring mix, spinach, arugula, mustards), salad turnips, baby carrots, cilantro High value (low labour): garlic, shallots, potatoes, fennel, chard, kale High price point but ALSO high labour: cherry tomatoes, peas

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are you growing it for? Maximum yield (don t care about $): Focus on lots of lbs per square foot - Kale, chard, collards, potatoes, summer squash, winter squash, bush beans, determinate tomatoes

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are you growing it for? Maximum engagement (all hands on deck): - Lots of small fruiting crops everyone gets to pick and sample - Lots of variety don t need enough of one thing for a client - Labour intensive crops so you have lots for people to do pick peas everyday; cut-wash-spin salad greens

Crop Planning Big Questions: Where is it going to go?

Weekly farmers market: Crop Planning Big Questions: Need something to bring every week choose indeterminate vs determinate stagger planting dates so you don t harvest all at once variety for shopper interest and for financial risk Where is it going to go?

Crop Planning Big Questions: Where is it going to go? CSA Community Supported Agriculture: How you frame the share your share is some of what s available vs you choose what you like need weekly harvest want to avoid any gaps

Crop Planning Big Questions: Restaurant Where is it going to go? Have enough to provide reliably This may mean growing fewer varieties but more of each variety you do grow Talk directly to your customers to see what they want, how much and when (be conservative with what you can do for them)

Crop Planning Big Questions: Take it home/eat in class: Where is it going to go? This may mean its ok to have lots of food ready all at once (ie. determinate tomatoes, winter squash, garlic) This impacts your seeding and harvest dates

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are your labour constraints?

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are your labour constraints? Do you have people who can maintain the fields over the summer? If not consider: - Growing only low-labour crops (winter squash, onions, leeks, potatoes) - Growing short season crops in the spring and fall only when you have people with a cover crop in the summer (radishes, salad greens, salad turnips, cilantro seeded and harvested in spring and seeded again in fall) - Growing lots of short season spring/fall WITH low-labour in the summer months

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are your labour constraints? Do you have steady labour but not a lot of it? If so consider: - Crops that are still relatively high value, but are less labour intensive AND still require regular attention (ie. heads of lettuce instead of cut lettuce, or beets and carrots)

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are your labour constraints? Do you have a lot of steady labour all of the time? If so consider: - Focusing on high value and high labour crops like cut greens, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, peas, beans, peppers, eggplants, baby carrots, baby beets - Consider the training needs of your labour and balance what you need to teach with you can get done in a day *** Most likely you will want to balance all of these: lots of labour intensive crops in the spring and fall when you have lot of students, a section of high value crops, and a section low-labour crops.

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are your space limitations? - Can you afford to have garlic in a bed for 8 months or do you need to get 5 sowings of cut greens out of that bed? - Can you have ¼ acre in winter squash or is your whole farm ¼ acre? - Can you start to double up? Trellised peas with spinach down below? Trellised melons with cut salad greens below? - Can you grow vertically or engage your students in thinking about innovative design?

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are your space limitations? Aquaponics in the horticulture classroom

Crop Planning Big Questions: What are your space limitations? Vertical planters strawberries in Vancouver

Crop Planning Big Questions: Other important limitations? - Access to water and irrigation (only grow crops that don t need a lot of water) - Access to a fridge (no crops that require cooling after harvest) - Access to a washing station (maybe no salad greens)

Crop Planning Big Questions: What do like? Keep a balance of what you like and enjoy too! ex. Watermelon

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Ready to jump into crop planning?

Field Map Starts with a drawing of your space if you are starting from scratch: Try to make your beds all one length (30-50 ft) Make them a standard width (3 ft) Oriented the same direction Consider your pathway smaller is good for production but balance with accessibility and the size of your harvest cart

Field Map

Master Crop Plan

Harvest Guide

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