Ms. Keller's Students Save Seeds and Make a Salad

This week Ms. Keller's 5th grade students learned about seed saving as part of their study of Thomas Jefferson the horticulturist. Thomas Jefferson saved the seeds from plants that he liked. Earlier in the school year they planted open pollinated seeds from Monticello in the Jeffersonian Garden. We discussed that plants grown from open pollinated seeds will be identical to the plant from which the seed came. Plants grown from hybrid plants will not necessarily be the same since they have two parent plants.

 They saved open pollinated seeds of broccoli, arugula and marigolds. They carefully took the tiny seeds of arugula and broccoli out of the seed pods. They wrote the common name and botanical names on the envelopes and directions for planting and then took them home to plant later. 

The students enjoyed a rainbow salad of yellow peppers,  tomatoes, carrots, broccoli and sugar snap peas. They like to serve themselves so they get the ingredients that they prefer. Some like the olive oil lemon juice vinaigrette dressing, others plain lemon juice or olive oil. 

Each student took home open pollinated heirloom Brinker Carrier beans donated from Seed Savers Exchange http://blog.seedsavers.org/blog/the-heritage-farm-collection-brinker-carrier-bean.

Broccoli seeds

Arugula seeds

Salad bar

Yummy salad