At Frederick Banting, students are involved in planting numerous types of different plants! Students participate in the growth of veggies and fruits and not only do they learn how to properly grow and take care of them but they learn how to cook with them. We have a garden located just outside of the school and also many plants growing inside Janet's’ classroom. Students learn about how essential plants are for the planet and all living things.
At Banting students are also able to take part in the production and harvest of maple syrup. Students learn the old tradition of harvesting and collecting sap and breakfasts are held at the school with the syrup the students help produce available for tasting!
About Flowering Plants:
The plant life cycle has mitosis occurring in spores, produced by meiosis, that germinate into the gametophyte phase. Alternation of generations occurs in plants, where the sporophyte phase is succeeded by the gametophyte phase. The sporophyte phase produces spores by meiosis within a sporangium. The gametophyte phase produces gametes by mitosis within an antheridium (producing sperm) and/or archegonium (producing eggs). Nonvascular plants, the mosses and liverworts, have the gametophyte phase dominant. Vascular plants show a progression of increasing sporophyte dominance from the ferns and "fern allies" to angiosperms.
The major stages of the flower life cycle are the seed, germination, growth, reproduction, pollination, and seed spreading stages. The plant life cycle starts with a seed; every seed holds a miniature plant called the embryo. There are two types of flowering plant seeds: dicots and monocots.
Plant Reproduction Methods Done in Class:
Pineapple
Pineapples are known to not have any seeds. The most common reproductive pathway is vegetative propagation. Which is taking one part of an existing plant and using it to grow a new plant. There are four parts of a pineapple that can be used for propagation: the crowns, slips, suckers, and shoots. The crown is the very top of the pineapple fruit and can be planted to grow another pineapple.
Planted a pineapple crown in soil. We now have several growing in class and we look forward to our first harvest!
Strawberries
Strawberry plants can be propagated asexually by allowing plantlets on the ends of stolons (“runners”) to grow in soil. However, the actual strawberries are a result of sexual reproduction (they grow from flowers). Reproduction occurs both sexually and asexually. We have wild strawberry plants that were planted in spring of 2018 in our Indigenous Reconciliation Garden and they are already spreading with the runners.
Avocado Planting
Planted avocado pits in class and it eventually sprouted into a tree. We did it the natural way by just putting the pit broad side down in the soil and watered it well.
Birdseed
At school we had a bird feeder challenge. The seeds that overflowed from the feeders we made in class while filling the feeders were collected. We sprinkled leftover bird seed directly on to soil from the birdfeeders we made in class. Plants eventually sprouted from the seeds. The types of plants we have growing include sunflowers which we will be able to transplant into our outdoor garden along with the other small plants
Beans
Planted bean seeds in soil. In the fall the class collected dried bean seeds that had not been harvested and we planted these seeds in pots indoors under our grow light. We have had beans through the winter!
Green Onions
When someone buys green onions we collect the root sections and place in soil in a pot in our classroom window. This gives us a supply of green onions all through the school year for cooking projects. You simply gut the green part off the onion leaving the root in the pot for continue production. We have green onions all year!
Garlic
We plant and harvest garlic at our school. It is a great crop as it is planted in the fall then harvested in the summer and it does not need much work to be successful.
How to: When planting garlic in the fall cloves should be placed 2-4 inches apart and 2 inches deep in their upright position (wide root facing down, pointed end facing up). We cover our garlic patch with leaves and branches to protect it over the wonder. In the spring when you start to seen the greenery peeping through the leaves we carefully uncover the young plants and compost the leaves and branches in our compost pile. In June we harvest the garlic scapes to force more growth in the bulbs. The actual bulb harvest is in August or September at the latest.
Harvesting: When it comes to harvesting garlic its important to let the plants die back but harvest before all the leaves turn brown. When the lower two thirds of leaves have dried up and turned brown, your garlic bulbs will be at their best. Because there are still green leaves, there is still quite a lot of moisture left in the bulbs. The process of allowing this moisture to reduce naturally is called “curing” and will increase the storage life of your garlic by months. Harvest your garlic bulbs gently. Take time to loosen the soil above each bulb. Once your bulbs are dug, lay the plants in a single layer somewhere that is dry, airy, and out of direct sunshine. Leave the plants (turning them every few days doesn’t hurt) like this for at least a week. You want the green leaves to dry up and turn brown on their own.
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