How to create a Bean Teepee:
- Find a sunny area in your garden.
- Obtain poles for your support (4-6).
- Stick the poles in the ground leaving an opening for little people to enter.
- Secure your poles together at the top as pictured with zip ties, yarn, or strong twine.
- Wrap twine around the structure as pictured to allow beans to climb.
- Plant your beans and watch them grow.
- Watch your little people to explore, enjoy, and hide-a-way!
 
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Let it Grow!
by Theresa Stenersen, RN, BSN, CCHC-C/E
Child Care Health Consultant Coach
NC Child Care Health and Safety Resource Center
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Bean beetles and squash lady beetles are a major pest in a small garden. Both look quite like the red lady beetle - which is also known as a ladybug as in “Ladybug lady bug, fly away home”. But instead of being red, they are yellow. Aside from appearance, however, they could not be more different. View here.
There are several good ways to fight bean beetles and squash lady beetles without resorting to harmful pesticides.
- Check your plants daily and look for the adult beetles (remember to leave the lucky red ladybug alone!), their eggs which are laid in clusters on the underside of the leaves, and the larvae which are bristly yellow. The larvae go through several stages, getting bigger each stage.
- Once you see the beetles, eggs, or larvae, remove the leaves with beetle eggs or larvae and place them in a sealed bag to dispose of later or smash the adult beetles and larvae between your fingers. It helps to have garden gloves on to avoid getting beetle juice on your fingers! The adult beetles may be harder to catch because they tend to fall to the ground if disturbed.
- At the end of the season, gather up any garden debris to keep the harmful beetles from overwintering and showing up next spring. Put the debris into sealed plastic bags and let these bags “cook” in the sun for a week or so.
- Plant crops of vegetables that these beetles feed on either very early - using varieties that mature early - or late in the gardening season. By late July or August, most of the beetles will have hatched and moved on if they did not find anything to eat in your garden, leaving fewer beetles behind to trouble you!
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Whip It Up!
by Marianne Lindgren & Chika Mita
NC Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)
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Combine crunchy green beans, juicy cherry tomatoes, and sweet corn to create a healthy, colorful snack packed with flavor and essential vitamins - perfect for fueling growing kids during a busy day! Plus, it's super easy to prepare, saving you valuable kitchen time. It works beautifully as a light snack. Serve with whole grain-rich tortilla chips for a creditable snack in the CACFP.
Summer Salad
Yield: 8 servings
Snack serving size for 3–5-year-olds: ½ cup vegetable mixture (green beans, tomatoes, and corn) + 1 tablespoon of feta cheese + 0.5 oz. (14 grams) of whole grain tortilla chips
Ingredients:
- ¾ pound fresh green beans, washed and trimmed
- ½ pound cherry tomatoes
- 2 ears fresh corn with husks (5 to 6-inch length), cooked
- and cut off the cob (about 1/2 cob = ¼ cup cooked corn)
- 4 oz feta, crumbled
- 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 cup packed basil leaves, cut into thin ribbons
- Salt to taste
- 4 oz (112 g) whole grain tortilla chips
Directions:
- Cook the green beans in salted water until just done, being careful not to overcook. Cut beans into half-inch lengths. Chill for approximately 15-30 minutes.
- Wash tomatoes under cold running water for 30 to 60 seconds, rub gently, pat dry, and cut in half.
- In a large bowl, combine the green beans, cooked corn and halved cherry tomatoes.
- Make the vinaigrette by combining the vinegar and mustard in a small bowl, then add the oil in a thin stream while beating together.
- Add the basil and the dressing to the vegetable mixture.
- Salt to taste.
- Portion ½ cup vegetable mixture and sprinkle 1 tablespoon of feta cheese on top.
- Serve with whole grain tortilla chips.*
*Not all tortilla chips are creditable in the CACFP. Some credit as whole grain-rich, while others credit as a grain component (but not a whole grain-rich). To ensure the tortilla chips you serve are creditable in the CACFP, please review this Product Review Tip Sheet: Tortilla Chips.
Recipe adapted from: Dare County NC Cooperative Extension
CACFP Crediting for Snack for 3–5-year-olds: ½ cup vegetable and ½ oz. eq. of grain
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This Week in the Garden
@ Preschool
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See what's happening
preschool edition! |
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The NC Farm to Preschool Network connects, educates, develops and shares resources between community and state partners, farmers, early childhood educators and families to spark the local foods movement in early childhood education environments. |
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Green Bean! Green Bean!
by Patricia Thomas
Plant it―water it―weed it―protect it―and under the blossoms is the perfect shady nook to read a book! Pretty soon it's time to pick all those long, lean beans, and to harvest a full season of garden knowledge and experience. A green bean can teach much about seeds and seasons and cycles―but it also can make us appreciate the challenges it must overcome. Read aloud on YouTube.
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Offering farm-fresh foods and engaging in farm to ECE programs can enhance the reputation of your childcare site. Parents may view providers who participate in Farm to ECE programs as more committed to providing healthy, high-quality care for their children. The Farm to ECE Connections Map can help you enrich your Farm to ECE program.
Check out this resource to discover additional advantages of the map and to gain insights into its effective utilization. Moreover, don't miss the opportunity to explore
the ECE Resources tab for valuable resources and curricula. Lastly, ensure you
register your site on the map by clicking here.
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Local Food Purchasing Successes Across NC
by Shironda Brown
NC Farm to Early Care & Education Initiative Training Coordinator
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Buncombe County:
First contacts with all food distributors and food hubs have been made for the summer. Mother Earth Foods seems to be the most promising to bring local foods to the small childcare and family childcare home centers. In an effort to help ECE providers procure local food, the city of Asheville is looking into the possibility of creating a central kitchen for the area.
Guilford County:
Collaboration work is at its best in this county. A large preschool center is helping the smaller centers in the area by allowing local produce to be stored at their sites. The interns in this county are working on establishing a weekly availability list and an order list for the centers in the area. They are also working on streamlining the food deliveries from the area food hubs to help centers organize the amount of local food coming into the centers.
Wayne County:
Wayne county is currently working on finding ways to expand their local food purchasing efforts. Until more pathways are established the ECE centers and FHC centers are incorporating local foods into their daily lesson plans. This is taking place by purchasing local foods from area farmers markets and grocery stores that relate to lesson plans and books in their classrooms. Some of the childcare centers have even invited parents into their schools to prepare authentic food from the child/families native culture. The families cooking authentic meals has been the highlight for the children and center staff.
Wake County:
Wake County hit the ground running by working on the installation of garden beds within the family childcare homes that are in the collaborative. They also hosted a community block party which highlighted local foods and offered many hand-on-activities for the children. Once the event was over the remaining fresh produce was given to the family childcare home centers in the LFP Collaborative.
Watauga County:
Root veggies have been the topic of conversation in the area childcare centers. ECE providers have begun reading various books related to root veggies in their classrooms and have also requested root veggies be placed in their CSA (community supported agriculture) boxes weekly.
This country has also introduced root veggies to their infants and toddlers by purchasing garlic scapes from their food hub. The garlic scapes were cut into small pieces and given to the infants and toddlers to taste. They all loved this new food that was introduced to their palates.
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Watch this video to learn how to grow a bean plant! View here.
Meet Farmer Chloe Moore, the farm manager for Southside Community Farm, an urban food space in the historically black Southside neighborhood in Asheville, NC. View here.
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