Nature Studies Blog

The Power of Garlic
Carina Brossy

One of my favorite plants to grow in the fall garden is the beloved garlic. This bulb plant is not only an incredible culinary ingredient, but also super easy to grow and use for a multitude of medicinal purposes. September through early November is the best time to plant garlic. Each clove in a garlic head represents one garlic “seed”. 

Here are a few important steps for growing this wonderful SUPERFOOD.

1.     Purchase your garlic seed bulb at your local nursery instead of the grocery store. 

2.     Follow the planting spacing, depth and soil needs and be prepared to wait. Garlic has a long growing season for good reason. Before the soil gets too cold and hard in the winter, garlic needs time to establish healthy roots before going dormant. Once spring warms the soil, the garlic will grow taller foliage and focus its energy on growing a full bulb. 

3.     Once the foliage starts to die back in early June, you know your garlic is ready. 

4.     Freshly harvested garlic and garlic skin is very soft and your garlic will need another week or two to cure. In our home, we enjoy braiding garlic and hanging it on our wall. It’s such a labor of love, but completely satisfying. Be sure to save a few heads of garlic for dividing and replanting again in the fall. YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO BUY GARLIC AGAIN!

FIVE HEALTH BENEFITS OF GARLIC

1.     Garlic is a natural bug repellant

2.     Garlic has anti-viral properties

3.     Garlic has immune boosting properties

4.     The active compounds in garlic reduce blood pressure

5.     Garlic contains antioxidants.

For more health information, visit 11 Health Benefits of Garlic.

 

Read More about The Power of Garlic
Among the Bees
Carina Brossy

Cringe. Swat. Run! 

Nobody wants to be chased down by a bee, but our instinct to assume we are the target of villainous, mafioso bees is simply the stuff of cartoons.  While bee stings are real, and for a small minority, even fatal, bees are rarely in pursuit of humans. Lately our campus has been “abuzz” with bees. With the arrival of cooler temperatures and many late summer/early fall flowers in bloom, bees are doing what they do best – foraging. They know winter is coming; it’s time to store up food! 

Our fall-blooming MAXIMILIAN SUNFLOWERS provide ideal sources of pollen and nectar for these amazing insects. This week, several of our younger students spent time studying the shapes and sizes of these bright native sunflowers as well as their many visitors. As they stood still observing the flowers, they quickly realized they were also standing still among the bees. And not one student was stung – no cringe, swat or run. The bees were COMPLETELY disinterested in them. It brought our students so much joy to watch these magnificent creatures zip from flower to flower. Like so many aspects of learning, the more you engage with God’s creative design, the more you appreciate it.  As they watched with wonder, our Arborbrook resident beekeeper shared several incredible facts about the life of bees. 

Wait! What? We have a beekeeper on staff? Yes – our very own Alicia Shepard is a certified beekeeper and maintains hives of her own. Alicia serves as Garden Assistant supporting our Nature Studies program, gardens and SO much more. Here are just a few of the amazing facts she shared with students: 

 

Five AMAZING Bee Facts: 

1.     All the honeybees we observed collecting pollen are FEMALES. In fact, all worker bees are female. 

2.     Bees keep pollen they collect in a space on their hind legs called a pollen basket.

3.     Honeybees communicate through dance. If bees find a good source of nectar, they will return to the hive and dance in a particular pattern to guide the other bees to this food source. 

4.     If a bee stings you, it will die. Because of this, bees are not inclined to sting if it’s not absolutely necessary for their protection or the protection of the hive.  

5.     Honeybees start working the minute they emerge from their pupa. Their first job is to clean up the cell they occupied when they were in their earlier pupa stage. They never sleep, but maintain a vigorous work schedule.  

Bees are critical to the health of our gardens and our edible landscape. Maintaining a floral landscape on campus is just one of the many ways we strive to be good stewards of the natural resources the Lord provides. Our students are encouraged to move from fear to awe as we enjoy the mysteries of the insect world. 

Read More about Among the Bees
The Groaning of Creation
Carina Brossy

The magnitude of natural disasters speaks to a deep groaning of creation. The Earth, unstable this side of heaven, longs for a time of balance and peace.  As created beings we also long for a day when fear and instability no longer plague our lives. But in the midst of a fractured landscape, the Lord teaches us to sift through the splintered pieces to discover his unwavering faithfulness. It’s not as simple as finding a “diamond in the rough” or a “silver lining”. Those cliché’s make it sound so easy. 

Take the Monarch Butterfly, for example. Third grade nature study students engage in a year-long focus on the life of this simple orange and black butterfly. The metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly is well-known among children, but few understand their migratory journey from the US down to southern Mexico each fall. The journey is long – often several thousand miles. Due to their short life spans, each Monarch butterfly makes this journey for the first and only time in their life, never having navigated this long route before. 

Through difficult weather, fields of predators and diminishing floral food landscapes, the Monarch flies on with one single goal in mind – finding its winter refuge. All winter they will roost in the Oyamel forests of Michoacan, Mexico until spring when they make the return journey back to their same exact birth location. I have trouble finding my car keys let alone the place I was born without my GPS. 

We all need this type of perseverance in the midst of a long and often unpredictable journey.  It reminds me of Hebrews 12:1-2: 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” 

What is most fascinating is that those Monarchs that make this journey live significantly longer than the Monarchs that live in the southernmost locations of the US (namely southern FL and CA) where mild winters make migration unnecessary. Their dangerous journey creates an endurance and longevity not found in the other butterflies. What a sobering nature lesson in the midst of such tragic, nature-related chaos. 

To symbolize this incredible migration, third graders mail life-size Monarch butterfly drawings as well as a large class butterfly down to live at the Mexican schools close by the Monarch Biological Reserves in the Oyamel forests. We typically receive photos of the Mexican students holding our students’ class butterfly. What a delight for our students to see a piece of themselves thousands of miles away as if they too made this journey. In the spring, ACA students receive “overwintering” butterfly drawings from other students across the US – another great discovery.  

Be on the look out for these migrating butterflies this fall. They often land on fall goldenrod and the Arborbrook Maximillian Sunflowers to refuel. 

 

 

Read More about The Groaning of Creation
What To Plant This Fall
Carina Brossy

With an early start to crisp autumn weather we’re ready more than ever to sow the Arborbrook garden beds with wonderful fall veggies. Here in the North Carolina Piedmont, you can generally start your fall gardens as early as August with well-watered root veggies and some greens. By the time Labor Day arrives, it’s game on for fall planting. So, what are Arborbrook students growing this fall? Within our 15 raised vegetable garden beds, we’re growing a combination of the following plants: 

  • Russian Kale
  • Rainbow Swiss Chard
  • Lettuce Mix
  • Danver Carrots
  • Watermelon Radishes
  • Golden Beets
  • Candy Cane Beets
  • Snap Peas

We will also start our indoor hydroponics unit soon, which is a larger project in 6th grade Nature Studies. 

Students worked hard last week pulling the last bits of summer plants from their garden beds and filling containers with new soil for growing carrots. Along the way, they made fantastic discoveries. You never know what critters call the gardens their home. 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking to try something new in your fall garden? Try tatsoi, leeks, bok choi or herbs such as cilantro, chives, and rosemary and medicinal flowers such as calendula. For a wonderful fall garden project, leave a space to plant garlic in October for an early June harvest. More on garlic in another post. 

Make sure you amend your soil well before planting, especially if you grew delicious summer veggies. Soil gets run down with successive planting. Adding proper compost and organic fertilizer with reinvigorate your garden beds. 

Read More about What To Plant This Fall
The Gift of Wonder
Carina Brossy

 

Wonder = a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar or inexplicable 
 

The gift of wonder is an offering to children and caregivers alike. We have the privilege of not only witnessing our child's "surprise mingled with admiration", but have been granted the exquisite task of setting the stage for these "beautiful, unexpected, and unfamiliar" observations. 

Arborbrook teachers set forth an "abundant feast" of ideas and experiences that leave indelible impression on our students. Our nature studies program is no different, offering a revolving door of wondrous finds.

These first few weeks of school have revealed a multitude of curious insects, tasty fresh fruits and vegetables and so many acts of Wonder it's hard to record them all. Our passion fruit vine serves as a host plant for the Gulf Fritillary while our cherry tomato plants attract the large and neon green tomato hornworm. Garden spiders, stink bugs, lizards and two foot long pole beans keep our students exploring with rapt attention. The muscadine vine keeps our students munching and refreshed by its cool sweet juices. Just a simple wondrous day in the gardens - a true gift from God. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read More about The Gift of Wonder
What's Growing on Campus?
Carina Brossy


Arborbrook is proud to host several large learning gardens.
 

garden

Our K-6 Edible School Garden contains 14 raised garden beds (one per class) and two herb gardens (rosemary, oregano, thyme, anise hyssop, lemon balm and mint). In addition to our seasonal vegetable and herb beds, you'll find the following fruit bearing plants:

- muscadine vines
- passion fruit vines
- two Celeste Fig trees
- strawberries
- an Asian Pear tree
- two Fuyu persimmon trees
- a pomegranate tree 
- two paw paw trees


Along with perennial and annual flower beds scattered around campus, our Pollinator Garden in front of Building Two serves as a host for a variety of butterflies, bird feeders and our stunning perennial fall-blooming Maximillian Sunflowers.

Our woodland playground serves as an entrance to our wooded trails where students can explore everything from native plants and trees, decomposing logs, mushrooms and lichen, insect species and reptiles. In the spring, the dry woodland creek bed fills with life, and students can wade in the water searching for tadpoles and crayfish.

Our Nature Studies program for all K-8 students allows students to regularly explore these areas while they play, sketch and cultivate fall and spring veggies!

Twice a month, we will post information about our gardens, what is in season, as well as how you can cultivate flowers and veggies in your own backyard. Stay tuned!

Read More about What's Growing on Campus?