On January 14th, 2011, 90 second graders at Valverda Elementary in Louisiana planted a patriotic potato patch, featuring various potato and onion varieties, with assistance from LSU AgCenter agents. The garden project aimed to educate students about gardening, the origins of food, and included participation from over 450 students and 22 teachers throughout the school year. This initiative, inspired by WWII victory gardens, serves as a tribute to soldiers and promotes community engagement and environmental awareness.

1. Veggie Bytes 2011
A Patriotic Potato Patch
On January 14th, 90 second graders of Valverda Elementary, located near Livonia,
La., planted a Patriotic Potato Patch in their school garden. LSU AgCenter Horticulture
agents Miles Brashier, Steve Borel and Mark Carriere assisted the young gardeners. The
varieties planted included:
Mountain Rose, a red skin potato with a pink to red center
Purple Viking, a purple/ blue skin potato with a white interior
Kennebec, a white skin, white flesh potato
Purple Majesty, a purple skin and purple flesh potato
Sixty 5th grade students planted Red La Soda, a red skin potato with white flesh in
the garden. The following week, sixty 4th graders planted red and white onions. The on-ion
varieties they chose to plant were White Bermuda, Southern Red, Texas Granex,
1015, Contessa, Candy and Red Candy Apple.
Valverda Elementary has a garden area that is approximately 7000 sq ft. The stu-dent’s
plant in long garden beds that are 4 ft wide by 60 ft long. Prior to planting, the
agents tilled the soil and fertilized the beds with 13-13-13. Students planted the potato
pieces skin side down on 9 inch centers.
Not only were the students planting their Patriotic Garden, they were also harvesting
a few fall vegetables. Other vegetables grown were beets, shallots (red and white), broc-coli
and cabbage. Throughout the school year, a total of 450 students and 22 teachers
participated in the Valverda Elementary School Garden.
Although Miles, Steve, and Mark are garden pros and have been planting potatoes
with school gardeners for several years, this is their first Patriotic Potato Patch. They
will create this same themed garden at Rosenwald Elementary, Rougon Elementary and
False River Academy. The idea for the Patriotic Potato Patch stemmed from the Victory
Gardens grown during WWII when vegetables were grown during the war to help sup-port
the families of the men at war. Sometimes vegetables were grown for the soldiers.
This garden is a nice tribute to our soldiers and to our country. Additionally, it teaches
students where food comes from, that vegetables come in all sizes and colors, and that a
little hard work pays off. continued on Page 5
February—April
Volume 2, Issue 1
A Patriotic Potato
Patch
1
What’s Growing 2
A Closer Look 3
Classroom to the
Garden
4
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
E-mail: kkfontenot@agcenter.lsu.edu
We’re on the Web www.lsuagcenter.com
Growing Gardens!
Kathryn “KiKi” Fontenot
155 Julian C. Miller Hall
Baton Rouge, LA 70803

2. What’s Growing!
Gardening tips
Start gearing up for your spring
vegetable garden now so that you can
harvest produce before school lets out
for the summer. Typically in Louisiana,
spring vegetable crops are not planted
outdoors before the last frost date.
South Louisiana gardeners can plant
around March 15th, North Louisiana
gardeners should wait until April 1st.
However, if you want to harvest a few
ripe tomatoes, peppers, etc before
school lets out you’ll need to start
transplants indoors. To grow trans-plants,
plant seeds into containers in a
sterile soil “germinating mix” indoors
(in a sunny window). Do not move
these transplants or seedlings into the
garden until they have developed their
first true leaves and after the last
chance of frost. See the planting guide
for vegetables that can be planted now.
Vegetables to plant in February
In the garden direct seed: beets, turnips, mustard, parsley, rad-ishes,
lettuce, snap beans and Irish potatoes.
In the garden plant transplants of: broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage,
and lettuce.
In the classroom: start transplants of tomatoes, peppers, and egg-plant.
Vegetables to Plant in March
In the garden direct seed: snap beans, Swiss chard, radish, lettuce,
collard greens, mustards, and turnips.
In the garden plant transplants of: tomatoes, peppers and egg-plants.
In the classroom: start cucumber transplants, plant after last frost.
Vegetables to plant in April
In the garden direct seed: snap beans, butter beans, radish, col-lards,
and cucumbers.
In the garden transplant: sweet potato slips, tomatoes, peppers,
and eggplant.
If you have a year-round school program or summer classes that will
care for and work in the garden you can also plant the following
vegetables. Sweet corn can be directly seeded into the garden in
LATE February. Plant cantaloupes, squash, cucumbers, and water-melons
well after danger of frost is over this is usually after March
15th in south Louisiana and closer to April 1 in North Louisiana.
Okra, Southern peas (field peas), peanuts, pumpkins, winter squash,
summer squash, and sweet corn can be direct seeded into the garden
in April. These vegetables are not generally recommended for
school gardens that will not be tended by students during the
summer. Students should be allowed to harvest everything they
plant.
How does your garden grow? Do you
have a school garden project? It could
be featured in an issue of Veggie Bytes.
Scholarship Information for Graduating Seniors!
Have you enjoyed gardening at your school? Are you interested in pursuing a degree in plant sciences? Are
you a high school senior? If so, check out the National School Plant Management Association’s scholarship at
www.nspma.org. This group is giving $500-$1500.00 to students who would like to earn an associates or
bachelor degree from an accredited university. Fill out the scholarship package at the www.nspma.org website.
Place your cursor over “Scholarships and Trust” and click on the second highlighted item “Scholarship 2011
Application Forms.” The due date is March 1, 2011. It must be received by the NSPMA by this date by postal
mail. The deadline is soon! Good luck to all college-bound high school seniors.
PAGE 2 VEGGIE BYTES

3. A Closer Look
Many school gardeners planted strawberries in
their gardens in September and October. Your ber-ries
should have increased in size and have grown
multiple crowns since they’ve been planted. Hope-fully
you have harvested a couple of berries by now.
As the temperature rises, you will be harvesting
more and more. Aside from watering, fertilizing and
covering your strawberry plants from freezing tem-peratures,
have you really looked at your plants?
Find a few hand lenses or microscopes and start
observing. Under the hand lens or microscope, ob-serve
a leaf. Do you notice anything that you had
not seen before? You should see tiny hairs on both
sides of the leaf. Plants have hair but we don’t call it
hair. The scientific term for plant hair is
“pubescence”. Pubescence has a function. Some sci-entists
think that plants have evolved pubescence as
a result of living in stressful environments. There
are many possible functions of pubescence. Pubes-cence
is thought to slow down air movement around
stomata (small holes in a leaf’s surface that allow
transpiration to occur). On windy days, the pubes-cence
protects the stomata from the direct wind and
thus slows down transpiration. If too much transpi-ration
occurs a plant will wilt. Pubescence may also
act as a blanket as help protect the plant from freez-ing
temperatures. Because pubescent plants have a
fuzzy feel, many herbivores don’t like the way they
taste. Individual pubescence on the leaf surface
shades the leave. This is important in extremely hot
and sunny environments like deserts. Can you imag-ine
why your strawberry plants have pubescence?
Now look closely at the underside of the leaf.
Focus on the midrib or vein. Did you see anything
moving? Look closely! If you have been covering
your strawberries for freeze protection, you might
have encouraged mites to come to your plants. Some
mites are beneficial and some are pests. Look care-fully
at the mites. If they have two dark spots on
their body, spray horticulture oil or use a liquid dish
detergent mixed with water to suds up your plants.
Both soapy water and horticulture oil will smoother
the mites. Mites will slow down strawberry growth
so watch carefully for them.
Do you have any berries on your plants? Look
closely at the berries. See the seeds? Strawberries
are unique because unlike other fruits and vegetables,
strawberries contain their seeds on the outside of their
flesh. Did you know each berry has approximately 200
seeds? Go ahead count them!
Here is a neat strawberry fact. The little brown seed
-like structures that get stuck in our teeth when you eat
strawberries really aren’t seeds at all. I know I just re-ferred
to them as seeds but they are really achenes or
nuts! Yes Nuts! Inside each nut is a tiny seed. The red
flesh that we think of as the fruit is different than most
fruits too. It is accessory tissue. Most fruit that we eat is
ovarian tissue. Technically a strawberry really isn’t a
fruit even though we say it is!
Wait! You are not finished observing yet. Look
closely at the flower while you have your hand lenses
and microscopes out. .Do you notice anything? A
strawberry plant has a perfect flower. Perfect meaning
that the flower has both male (stamen [anther and fila-ment])
and female (stigma, style, and ovary) parts. This
one flower can successfully pollinate itself. Look at the
diagram of the flower below.
Does the drawing match the flower on your strawberry plant?
Can you locate the male and female parts of the flower on your
strawberry plants?
Try this easy strawberry shortcake recipe with your
students!
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 15 minutes
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients:
1 pre-baked loaf of pound cake or 1 angel food cake
3 cups strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 cup heavy cream
3 Tbsp. powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
Or ready-made whip cream
Preparation:
Use a potato masher to mash half of the strawberries in a
bowl. Stir in the sliced strawberries and chill. Beat the cream
with powdered sugar and vanilla until it from soft peaks.
Slice the pound cake. Place one slice of cake on a plate and
cover with the strawberry mixture and a dollop of cream.
Serve immediately.
PAGE 3 VEGGIE BYTES

4. Connecting the Classroom to the Garden
Lafayette Master Gardeners, Norman and Glenda Ballivierro shared some neat school garden activities
at the 2011 Louisiana State Horticulture Society (LSHS) meeting. These activities are wonderful ways to con-nect
the garden to the classroom! The first activity can be used in an art or science class! As Lafayette Master
Gardeners, their design is named and fashioned for ULL. Decorate your “baby” using your school colors. The
second activity is perfect for geography or history classes.
Seed propagation is
often taught in the
classroom. Typical ac-tivities
include planting
seeds figuring germina-tion
percentages, meas-uring
growth, but why
not make it into an art
activity. Follow the in-structions
below to cre-ate
your own Cajun
Baby.
Materials Needed:
• Knee high stockings (one per child)
• Rye grass seed
• Potting soil (preferably without fertilizer)
• Movable plastic eyes (hobby store)
• Plastic water bottle
• Water soluble glue
Directions:
Place ¼ cup of rye grass seed into the knee
high stocking. Add potting soil. Tie a knot in the
stocking and shape the soil and seed into a ball.
This will serve as the Cajun baby’s head. Glue
eyes onto the head. Soak the entire head in water
overnight. Cut the top of the water bottle off and
invert it into the bottle. Fill with water about 2/3
the way full. Place the long end of the knee high
stocking into the bottle balancing the head in the
inverted lid. Place the Cajun Baby in a bright win-dowsill
and maintain water in the bottle. Watch as
your Cajun Baby grows hair. Students can deco-rate
the bottles or bodies of their Cajun Babies any
way they like. Make this a math lesson by count-ing
the days to seed emergence and measuring hair
growth!
Birdhouse Geography!
How is your school’s
garden oriented? Do you
know which direction north,
south, east and west face? Do
you know which states sur-round
Louisiana? Find a map
and check it out. You’ll no-tice
Texas is to our West,
Mississippi to the East and
Arkansas to the North. To the
south is the Gulf of Mexico.
Construct a bird house with 3
separate rooms. Use a license
plate from Texas as the roof
for one of the side rooms and
a licenses plate from Missis-sippi
as a roof on the other
Where did everyone go?
Arkansas, Texas, swimming
in the Gulf??????
side room. The middle house
(the tallest house) should have an Arkansas licenses
plate as the roof. Place a Louisiana license plate on the
center of the birdhouse. Use a compass to locate North,
South, East and West in your garden. Orient the bird-house
so that it acts as a geographical reference to the
states surrounding Louisiana!
Great Books for the Younger Gardening Literature
Class
It is hard for an entire school to participate in growing a
garden. But it isn’t hard for all students in the school to
enjoy the garden space. The school garden is a wonder-ful
location to read a book on warm sunny days. Here
are some suggestions for the younger readers!
• Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens
(Pre-K to 2nd grade)
• The Vegetables We Eat by Gail Gibbons
(Pre-K to 3rd grade)
• One Bean by Anne Rockwell
(Pre-K to 2nd grade)
PAGE 4 VEGGIE BYTES

5. A Patriotic Potato Patch. Continued from Page 1.
A Patriotic Potato Patch
The two varieties of potatoes most commonly grown
in Louisiana are Red LaSoda and Kennebec. You can
easily find these red and white potatoes at your local
hardware store or nursery. Purple potatoes will need to be
ordered online. Potatoes are cut in quarters or halves with
at least one eye on each piece. Plant pieces about 4 inches
deep into the soil. As the plants start growing, throw dirt
up around the base of the plant. This is especially impor-tant
as the potatoes start forming. You do not want the
potatoes exposed to sunlight. Potatoes will be ready to
harvest when half of the vegetative matter turns yellow or
brown. This generally occurs 90-110 days after planting.
If you think heavy rains will occur right before harvest…
harvest the potatoes early! They are very susceptible to
rot. Small potatoes are better than no potatoes!
Speaking of Patriotic Gardens if you are in 4H and
plan to attend 4H summer camp, check out the new Vic-tory
Garden Track. You’ll learn all about gardening by
participating in fun pollination relay races, making ter-rariums,
eating like an insect, and composting with live
worms! Carly Gillett is the summer track leader. She is a
Horticulture master’s degree student at LSU and is very
fun to hang out with. Join her this summer at 4H camp in
the Victory Garden track! It’s a yummy idea.
Potatoes are cut in quarters or halves with
at least one eye on each piece. Plant about
4 inches deep into the soil.
Helping hands!
PAGE 5 VEGGIE BYTES