School Gardens

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7 Comments

Comment by Carola on July 14, 2008 at 12:48pm

I like it!

Comment by Carola on July 13, 2008 at 2:44pm

Sharing John's description of his garden programs in the area of Sacramento, California. Inspiring!
(Maybe it will encourage more program descriptions from our School Garden Group members?)

John writes,
". . . currently I am involved with three volunteer projects. My longest project is with Creative Connections Arts Academy. A charter school of about 360 kids K-8. We have a large outdoor garden area that includes 13 raised bed gardens, a few grapevines, and 43 fruit trees. We also have an area for an outdoor classroom. We have container gardens spread around the campus that grow annual flowers the kids start from seed and blueberries. The pride of the school however is our hummingbird and butterfly garden. The teachers use the various plantings for educational purposes and everything is maintained by the families about every 6 weeks.
I am also volunteering with Grant High School's GEO program where I teach propagation and nursery techniques. The students have their own product line of Salsa. My favorite is the peach. The gardens' host tours for all the neighboring elementary schools to tour the gardens. This provides a great experience for the high school students to work with the younger elementary students. This past spring we developed our on kitchen with generous support from a few foundations.
My proudest volunteer achievements however are with a supportive housing project for formerly homeless families. Serna Village located at McClellan Park, is home to over 200 fruit trees with 120 trees incorporated into the landscape and the rest are grown in containers by the families on their porches or balconies. The families have community raised bed gardens for the kids as well as the adults. The adults garden grows herbs, flowers, vegetables, berries and grapes.
The kids garden grows vegetables, chrysanthemums, a few citrus trees, and an assortment of flowering annuals they start from seed. This past year we discovered this great company called Wintersown seeds. For the cost of a couple of stamps and envelopes they send a variety of seeds to grow. What an amazing resource. The kids have grown many things we had never heard of before and have been impressed with the success of germination. "

Comment by Carola on July 13, 2008 at 12:38pm

Dear School Garden Group members,
Is there a way we can insert a photo to represent our group?
Can only the creator of the group do that?
Is the creator, Hope, still around??

Comment by Carola on July 12, 2008 at 11:14pm

Hello, again, John.
Your insect photos are really wonderful! The swallowtail on the lavender buddleia is gorgeous. The milkweed bug is all too familiar.
Read your "bio"... it sounds so much like me! I'm a master gardener in L.A. county and my passions are school gardens and edible landscape. Everything we've planted at home is edible to either humans (us) or wildlife. We live on a city lot, but there's enough room for quite a lot between front and back yards.
The main part of our school garden is about 54X24 feet. The beds are divided by grade level and it's all edible or habitat plants. First and second grade do "the three sister" in the summer and a salad garden fall--spring.
Third and fourth grades have two large beds each and plant everything we can get our hands on, both from seed and transplants.
The perimeter of the garden is habitat for birds and butterflies and is planted and maintained by fifth graders. They also have a rose garden, shade garden, herb box and take care of the fruit trees, which are all in pots.
Oh, these students are the 250 kids who are in the after-school program. Lincoln is a year-round, inner city school with about 1,500 students.
I teach garden workshop two days per week, with an extra day thrown in when necessary. Like next week... we're working on some murals. One of the water cycle and one on the side of the large herb box.
Sometimes, I'm asked to teach workshops for the regular school day classes, too. Last week and this, I'm teaching the first grade classes a lesson on "Parts of Plants We Eat." We have nine classes at each grade level (down from 12 when I was teaching full time!).
That's more than I meant to write! Please tell us about your program? Carola

Comment by Carola on July 12, 2008 at 12:43pm

How are your school garden programs coming along? Are you "shut down" for the summer? Or, like our Global Friendship Garden in Long Beach, CA, are you a "year-round" school?
If school's out for the summer, what are you doing in the school garden? Special programs? Or, just
survival maintenance? I've been asked to give three different school garden talks, lately, and the problem of what to do during summer vacation always comes up. Thanks, Carola

Comment by Tina Kite on April 17, 2008 at 9:42pm

I help to run a non-profit that puts edible, organic gardens in inner city schools in Georgia. Our first school is building the garden out April 19th! I'd like to learn from others who are working in school gardens. Look for our website coming soon. Urban Gateway Gardens

Comment by Granny on March 24, 2008 at 7:01pm

I run a school garden program at a suburban school where we work with nearly 1,700 students. We do not have the challange of being in a unsafe area but I'll bet we share many other common concerns as we strive to make a different in the lives of the kids we work with.
Granny http://www.grannysgardenschool.com/