School Gardening Project

[honeydew]

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with getting a school gardening project going.

We live just outside a very small town, where our kids attend the elementary school.

I expressed interest in helping getting a project going, and there are at least 2 other motivated staff members working there, but we can't seem to get any other interest.

Is this something that would work well as a joint project, with the community? Has anyone been a part of something similar that could offer some thoughts?

Marie

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Plan as if you will be the only one providing any seeds, labor, or equipment and it will be a fabulous success.

[honeydew]

I've been trying to get the support of the principal, and apparently there is curriculum and even are grants for these sorts of projects!

There are (of course) several good reasons why we should do this, but it doesn't look like I could muster enough support before the kids move on from elementary ... not that that in itself is a good reason to give up on the idea.

I imagine something like this couldn't be simple. Where will it be, who will be in charge, who will participate, who will get something out of it, and on.

Hmm....guess I will have to pull some new skills out of my pocket and get people excited!

[Joseph Lofthouse]

You could grow ONE flower bed around the flag-pole, or a few tomato plants next to the building where there is that funny crook in the sidewalk.

I'll offer a grant right now... 5 packets of vegetable seeds. You may choose the variety. PM me your grant application.

Primarily the principal is interested in not creating a liability for the school... What if the garden is allowed to go to weeds? What will the PTA think? What if a kid eats green potatoes and gets poisoned? Who will take care of it if the caretaker breaks an arm?

Build a small enough garden and the only support issue you have to worry about is if you are ambitious enough, and healthy enough to take care of the garden like a public garden aught to be taken care of. I wouldn't consider another public garden unless there were at least three of us that were committed enough to it to do all of the work if the other two got ill or moved. Put the garden in a pot and the school could just drop it in the dumpster if you stopped taking care of it. Or you could move it home when school was not in session.

Even if the school is not willing to provide land for a garden, perhaps the yard next to the main school crosswalk would be willing. Schools are all the time taking trips to botanical gardens. Perhaps they would take a trip to your garden?...

[lavandulagirl]

I started one this year at my son's school. It's a 4-8 school. We are working with raised beds, and have chosen to make a demonstration garden. The kids are driving the idea process, doing research regarding what kinds of beds they are interested in creating. As a result, we currently have a rose bed, an herbs and edibles bed, a medicinal bed, an ugly-plant-name bed, an animal-plant-name bed, a bulb bed, a California natives bed, and finally, a bed dedicated to a moon garden. We purposely steered away from certain things, like tomatoes, unfortunately, as they are not on a year-round school year, and get out in May. They are currently getting a composting program off the ground, and will be collecting compostables during the lunch time once a week. If you are at all familiar with the Odyssey of the Mind Challenge, you can look to it as a model for how I'm trying to facilitate the program - through the kids doing their own research and planning, versus the drier, teacher-led model. We will begin our docent program this coming spring, where the group will be able to give information to touring classrooms, and perhaps moderate planting projects, as well.

There are a ton of grants available for these programs. Good luck with yours!

*edited to add - I mean it's grades 4-8, not 4-8 year olds. Realized I wasn't clear, there

[synergy]

Well I will offer a thought, our sort of rural elementary had a number of mothers who would transport kindergarten age children to school, then have to pick them up in two and a half hours anyways so a few who enjoyed meeting up and chatting a few times a week decided we wanted a garden area for our kids. The school board gave us no support at all citing liability and school board union issues, so we just hauled our garden tools to school and started beds. You might find that young parents of kids that age tend to be more able to be involved , having younger ones at home still and not as inclined to already be back in the work force and ambitious to help shape their childrens minds. I don't see why a well thought out garden plan might not then ellicit some support from garden centres or farm supply or even local businesses to donate a bit. We as mothers all pitched in and divided plants, started extra seed etc.
In the USA TomatoBob seed supply has a school seed donation program , maybe in Canada you could approach a few seed houses, maybe Richters herbs, etc. I would think something like spearmint, chives , pansies etc. could be harvested a bit during the school year. Once we did all the work the school board gardeners actually watered the garden for us on the quiet through summer as they tended the lawns and we all chipped in with weeding come September.

Our endeavour was highly unorganized and just evolved. Good luck, it might just surprise you and work out great.

[flowerpower]

Nov 22, 2010 0:23:45 GMT -5 Joseph Lofthouse said:

You could grow ONE flower bed around the flag-pole, or a few tomato plants next to the building where there is that funny crook in the sidewalk.

Definitely start small. Maybe a 3x6 raised bed. In the spring, you have the kids go out and plant peas, leaf lettuce, easter egg radishes..Things that have a very short DTM and are easy to plant. Then the kids can pick and eat what they have grown. They are out of school when things like maters are ripe.

If there is a community garden that rents plots, call them. The one in my county donated a plot to Head Start Pre School and the food bank. And maybe you can get an organization like the Boy Scouts to build the raised bed. But definitely look into those educational grants so you have a bit of start up cash.

[wildseed57]

I live in a very rural town of 500, the local elementary classes had out cabbage plants to the kids, which i thought needed to be upgraded to something else so I had my grand daughter check with her teacher to see if she would like some seeds to give to the kids, many of which do have small gardens at home. The teacher was more than happy to get them which was a mix of nearly 200 seeds neatly put in small packets and marked what they were, I gave out small personal size water melon seeds rare from S. Korea, Golden Marconi sweet peppers, My mixed yellow heirloom tomato varieties that I grow every year, and Thai long Egg plant and Ping Tung Eggplant. surprisingly the Eggplants were the biggest winners as not one seed of them were returned, which I thought would be the only small amount of seeds that did come back was two packs of my personal size watermelon, which I gave to some younger neighborhood kids. so all were handed out I didn't put a amount of how many seeds each kid couple pick as there was enough for everyone to get a pack of each one. I didn't bother to ask the teacher at the end of the season how the kids did with the seeds, I expect that most were planted and enjoyed. Like most people have already stated, is to start small and expect to do most of the work if you do a garden, so that you can keep control of it. As I'm disabled I can't expend energy on much of anything except my own garden, but I had plenty of seeds at that time, that I could share. I know the kids were getting tired of getting a cabbage plant to grow as my grand daughter was asking me if I had room for a cabbage plant "again," usually she's pretty Gung Ho when it comes to gardening, but I could tell she was getting tired of the same thing again. This coming spring I don't know if I will have as many varieties to spread around as I had a bad year, but I'm still going to try as I don't want the kids to face another Cabbage plant. Well like I said try and keep it as small or as large as you think you can handle it alone and have fun.
George W.

[honeydew]

Thanks to everyone for the thought provoking replies....starting small is a very wise course of action. Maybe a good foot-in-the-door way to do more when more interest comes out of the woodwork.

I think all children should be taught how to provide their own food, it's always up to them to choose.

Joseph, thanks for the kind offer of seeds.

I will update to this thread if I can get this going.

Marie

[wildseed57]

Once you get it started, you could ask the kids if any has done any gardening or has grown any flowers along with asking the kids as a group what they think about it and what they might like.
Its always a good idea to include what the kids might want to do, if you are given a space for a small garden sight, you could get the kids to do small projects that would go into the garden, I know the school here had some half tubs and a long trough they had been planted withe several different types of lettuce, carrots, flowers along with some bird houses set up. The project didn't go to far as it was set next to a conservation area where there was plenty of deer and ground Hogs that happily fed themselves all summer long and the garden was soon left to them, something you might think about if and when you get started.
George W.

[seedywen]

You've received quite a number of helpful ideas.

From my experience in another Canadian small town(pop. 12,000) starting up a school/community garden(lots of energy/enthusiasm/volunteers ) is relatively easy.

Keeping a project, going through the first growing season and beyond, seems to take a dedicated core group of committed adults, whether they be community volunteers, teachers, parents/grandparents etc. Many young children can be keen to participate but it will be up to a few key people to coordinate the project and keep it alive and happening throughout the season.

Starting small with one large raised bed or something like an entrance way, butterfly or edible landscaping garden are a few of the projects, I've supported. And last time visited the sites, the gardens are still ongoing.

In our community, school or community greenhouses have not fared very well. Permanent structures seem prone to vandalism as after school/program daylight hours, the structures are insecure and not necessarily adjacent to near neighbours.

[honeydew]

wildseed57, yes, keeping the kids' interest would be helpful..lol. I really liked the ideas in a book called Sunflower Houses: Inspiration From the Garden--A Book for Children and Their Grown-Ups (let's see if I can figure out how to insert a link here . . . www.amazon.ca/Sunflower-Houses-Inspiration-Garden---Grown-Ups/dp/0761123865/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1290909438&sr=8-2

seedywen, here we are really really small...our population is 750ish. I agree, a dedicated core group is key. I was wondering the same thing about the risk of vandalism after school hours.

Okay, an update! There is good news and bad news.

The bad news is the school will be unable to offer an area for a garden, as it looks like the school bus pickup area is being moved to the proposed garden area. The projects coordinator did not have time to search and apply for grants either.

The good news is, because we are a community school, it is encouraged to use the school for community activities. We can look at starting a gardening group that can, of course, include children, and look at perhaps some available gardening space close by.

Confirmed number of interested adult participants is now officially two. And I have heard of another who has expressed interest in a community garden project in the past. My phone list now sits at three potential participants.

I think the ball may very well be rolling now! Yay!

Marie