{"title":"Epiphany School","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eEpiphany is a tuition-free independent school in Boston with a comprehensive garden program! Our school includes a middle school (grades 5-8) and an early learning center (infants-preschoolers). We are open 11 hours a day and strive to be a full-service school: the school day includes three meals and snacks, sports, visual and performing arts, garden-based-learning, therapy, study hall, tutoring, and much more. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eOur garden program includes a 1000 square foot tropical greenhouse, a 24-raised-bed vegetable garden, a pollinator garden, and a rain garden. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe garden program is part of every facet of the school:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e* Garden-based learning: During the school day, we collaborate with teachers at both the middle school and early learning center, creating rigorous, exploratory, hands-on projects and activities.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e* Youth leadership: We offer Green Club (a cooking and gardening program) to our middle schoolers as an elective during the school day.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e* Youth employment: Our high-school-aged graduates garden and cook with us over the summer, and then lead events and assist with garden maintenance during the school year.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e*Food sovereignty: We collaborate with our families to center culturally important crops in our gardens and we work with other food justice organizations in our community to increase food sovereignty and food security in Boston.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e* Sanctuary: Our greenhouse and gardens are a sanctuary for our entire community, from students and families to staff and teachers to neighbors and pollinating insects.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"SGSpiceGallery\" id=\"SGSpiceGallery11416\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"wilsons-vietnamese-devil-pepper","title":"Wilson's Vietnamese Devil Pepper","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis incredibly hot family heirloom pepper was shared with Epiphany School by the Wilson Family! Mr. Johnny Wilson is an Epiphany graduate, Dean of Students at the middle school, and parent of two children at the early learning center. His mom, Mrs. Liz Wilson, is an amazing gardener who brought these rare seeds over from Vietnam in the early 2000s. She has been saving their seeds every year, selecting for heat each time, which has resulted in a pepper with a Scoville level we estimate to be 300,000 - 500,000 SHU. This pepper has an outstanding lifespan: Mrs. Wilson brings her favorite plants inside each year to overwinter and says that the first pepper plant (which she calls the grandparent plant) has lived for over 20 years!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOver the past three seasons of growing Wilson’s Vietnamese Devil Pepper in our garden, our students have become obsessed with the pepper. Everyone knows the story of how the Wilsons introduced the pepper to us -- and most everyone also has their own story of taking too big of a bite of the pepper in the garden on a dare and spending the rest of the afternoon with their mouth attached to the garden faucet. Our students have been part of each step of growing the pepper to sell the seeds, starting with the math we needed to do to estimate how many plants to grow in the garden and culminating with extracting and drying the seeds for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese small but mighty peppers grow on dark green plants with fuzzy stems and leaves. The peppers themselves point upward as they grow, facing towards the sun. They start off black and over the course of a month slowly turn red, which is when they are at their hottest and sweetest, the best time to harvest. The Wilsons taught us to harvest the red peppers by grasping them at the base of the stem and pulling sideways. The Wilsons eat them alongside their meals -- a plate full of fresh peppers in the middle of the table, and everyone takes bites of the pepper between bites of food. Mr. Wilson also dries the peppers, makes them into flakes, and boils them in oil to make chili oil. Our students have been making hot sauce with the flesh of the peppers from our seed keeping!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDays to maturity:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e100-120 \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSeeds per pack:\u003c\/strong\u003e 25\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGermination rate:\u003c\/strong\u003e 88% on 11\/26\/2025\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003ePlanting \/ harvesting notes\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWe seed the peppers in the greenhouse about 8 weeks before planting in the garden, starting them on heat mats to aid with germination. We plant them in our garden beds with 12-14 inch spacing; it’s helpful to provide support for plants (stakes or trellis). 100-120 days to maturity (or maybe longer, depending on how you calculate it - seeded in mid March, fully ripe at end of August). \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eSeed keeping notes\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eMrs. Wilson swears by drying the peppers first and then extracting the seeds, but we were in a rush, so we processed the peppers while wet. Since the pepper is pretty small, it’s much faster to mashing peppers together in water than to cut each pepper open individually to scoop out the seeds. We wear goggles and gloves when processing these pepper seeds and make sure we are outside; any contact of pepper juice\/seeds with eyes or face is very painful. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Epiphany School","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44585230729454,"sku":"CAP-037","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2406\/3467\/files\/IMG_7310.jpg?v=1704743864"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2406\/3467\/collections\/IMG_7486.jpg?v=1704741366","url":"https:\/\/trueloveseeds.sbs\/collections\/epiphany-school.oembed","provider":"Truelove Seeds","version":"1.0","type":"link"}