CAN YOU DIG IT VOCABULARY

Can You Dig It Vocabulary

Part 1

Lesson A- Pick Your Plants

  1. Last frost: Correlates to the average date in Spring when the last light frost will occur. 

    1. Northern Iowa, May 15

    2. Southern Iowa, May 10

    3. Central Iowa- Somewhere in between

  2. First frost: Correlates to the average date in Fall when the first light frost will occur. 

    1. Northwest Iowa, often last week of September.

    2.  Central Iowa, it tends to be the second or third week of October.

    3. Southeastern Iowa tends to be at the end of October.

  3. Cool season crop: Early spring vegetables that can tolerate colder weather + soil temperatures and a light frost. These crops should be planted so that they mature when the weather is still 70 degrees fahrenheit or less.

  4. Warm season crop: Require warm weather and soil temperature to mature. Plant them after the danger of frost has passed. They grow best when temps are 75 degrees or more. 

  5. Food justice: Is the right to fresh, nutritious, culturally appropriate food. 

Part 1

Lesson B - Staring Seeds Indoors

  1. Direct sow: Planting seeds directly in the garden soil. This method avoids disrupting the plant's root system, avoids plants becoming root bound, and is more straightforward than indoor seed starting. 

  2. Transplant: Plants started indoors and grown into a sturdy seedling, then planted outdoors. 

  3. Germination: Germination is the process of a seed beginning to grow into plants through the early development of roots, shoots, and leaves. 

Part 1

Lesson C- Know Your Garden + Plant Friends

  1. Diversity: Diversity in the garden means planting a wide variety of plants. Each plant type has a different root structure, leaf coverage, height, nutrient absorption and nutrient excretion, that contributes to the health of a garden. 

  2. Partial sun: Partial sun plants also need around 6 hours of sunlight and no less than 4 hours. Morning sun may be best for these types of plants. 

  3. Full sun: Full sun plants need at least six hours or more of sun each day.   Afternoon sun tends to be stronger than morning sun, so if you know you can only offer a plant six hours of sun exposure, plant it in a spot that gets most of its sunlight in the afternoon.

  4. Annual: Annual plants complete their entire life cycle from seed to flower to seed within a single growing season. (Ex: Lettuce, Tomatoes, Cilantro)

  5. Biennial: Biennial plants require two years to complete their life cycle. The first year is just vegatative growth. The 2nd year the plant will produce vegetative growth, flowers, set seed, then die. (Ex: Onions, carrots, parsley)

  6. Perennial: Perennial plants are plants that grow for many growing seasons.(Asparagus, Thyme, Raspberries)

  7. Companion Planting: Companion planting is when you plant mutually beneficial plants next to one another. 

  8. Beneficial insects: Beneficial insects are any insects that perform vital ecological functions such as pollination, pest control, decomposition, and maintenance of wildlife. They are our allies in the garden! 

Part 2

Lesson A- Planting, Sowing, and Growing in the Garden

  1. Transplants: Transplants are also referred to as “starts”. They are young plants that have been started indoors which will then be planted or transplanted outdoors to the right place in the garden when the plants are ready.

  2. Hardening off: Hardening off is the process of slowly acclimating indoor grown plants to outdoor  weather conditions such as temperature shifts, direct sunlight, and wind in order to strengthen and thicken plant leaves and stems. 

  3. True leaves: True leaves are a smaller version of the adult plants leaves that is characteristic to the plants and helps you identify the plants. . A true leaf can perform photosynthesis. 

  4. Cotyledon: When a seed sprouts the first leaves that appear are not “true” leaves but “cotyledons” or seed leaves. These leaves are actually part of the seeds embryo and are able to provide enough food for the seedlings until the true leaves rise up. 

Part 2

Lesson B - Root to Soil

  1. Cultural practices: Cultural practices in the garden related to how you manage your garden to promote health and abundance. Some examples of cultural practices are rotating crops, providing  proper spacing between plants, or directly watering plant roots rather than plant foliage which may spread disease. 

  2. Rotation: Rotation is changing the location of garden crops from season to season. The practice is utilized for a myriad of reasons including soil fertility, limit spread of disease, and insect pest pressure. 

  3. Plant families: Plant families are groups of plants that share similar characteristics like flowers, and reproductive structures, and are evolutionarily related therefore they are grouped together. 

Part 2

Lesson C- Tucking in Your Seeds

  1. Direct seeding: Direct seeding (also called direct sowing) means planting seeds in the garden, rather than buying small plants or starting seeds indoors earlier in the season and transplanting them outside.

  2. Broadcasting: Broadcasting is usually done with smaller seeds. It’s a simple method of sprinkling seeds over the soil and loosely massaging them into the soil or using handfuls of soil to cover them. Usually broadcasted seed doesn’t need to be buried deeply. 

  3. Furrowing: Furrowing seeds refers to scratching a furrow or little ditch in the soil then dropping the seeds into the furrow at the proper spacing then covering the furrow back up with soil and giving the seeds a gentle pat to ensure good contact with the soil. 

  4. Drilling:The drill method involves poking a hole in the soil and putting a seed in the hole. 

  5. Thinning: Thinning refers to the removal of plants to make room for others to grow. You can do this by pulling or clipping the plants off at the soil surface. 

Part 3

Lesson A- You Are What You Eat

  1. Harvest: Harvest is the time when crops are gathered or picked. Knowing when and how to harvest crops is an important part of gardening. 

  2. Ripen: A crop is ripe when it is fully grown and ready to eat.  Oftentimes ripening is stimulated by day length.  

  3. Food Preservation: Food preservation are different methods of slowing down or stopping spoilage of food such as pickling, canning, or dehydrating. 

  4. Local Food System: The local food system is correlated to a geographic area or place that integrates food production, distribution, and consumption. 

Part 3

Lesson B- Seed Keeping

  1. Biodiversity: Means a variety of life. It includes different plant, animal, fungus, and microscopic species in the world. Biodiversity in an organic garden aims to support and maximize these many different organisms  which are vital to every part of the garden, but especially important when considering soil health. 

  2. Plant Life Cycle: The life cycle of a plant consists of four stages; seed, sprout, young plant, mature plant. 

  3. Open Pollinated: Open Pollinated seed comes from varieties that produce seed that can be harvested from the plant, saved, replanted, and the same variety will re-grow year after year. All heirloom seeds are open pollinated.

  4. Heirloom: Heirloom seeds come from open-pollinated plants that pass on similar characteristics and traits from the parent plant to the child plant. Heirloom seeds are varieties that have been preserved and not altered for many generations.

Hybrid: A hybrid seed is produced by cross pollinating two genetically different plants of the same species, such as two different tomatoes or two varieties of corn. Seeds saved from hybrid plantings will not reproduce the same variety the next year.