This sounds like a great thing for kids to do. You already have good ideas about what to grow. Zinnias by all means.

When a school garden is discussed though, I always wonder what is done during summer recess. Do the students continue to care for the garden during summer?

Jim

The plan is for garden care to be done by families evenings and weekends (Parent's Club). My hope is that school staff and teachers will use the garden as a teaching aid but not require it to be part of the cirriculum. I just feel there is a need for young children to be exposed to agriculture at a young age and that we can give parents some experience and hopefully use that to start a garden at home. I ust want to use one of my passions to better the community and give something back.

Great goal, but what about summer? Sch-ool will be letting out not long after you plant most veggies and will not start until many of them are at or past harvest stage. It doesn't seem to me the chil-dren will learn or experience much.

One thing that is interesting, and can be done during the sch-ool year, is hydroponics. Maybe, no - make that, way mo-re interesting than gard-ening in the dirt. The chil-dren can see the plants every sch-ool day and not only watch them grow, but see the roots.

True, there are a few things you can grow in dirt that don't do well in water alone, but not that many. A fun plant to grow, in water, indoors, is a parthenocarpic tomato such as Siletz or Legend. They don't need quite as much light, bees or summer time temps to produce fru-it and are also determinate plants so they do not get tall.

I did a set-up in my office window (I publish a community newspaper and often write about gard-ening in my column) and raised lettuce and tomatoes, with the idea of having Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches. Unfortunately, the lettuce grew much faster than the tomato!

You really can excite a lot of chil-dren with your idea, taking them from seed to feed, to sort of say.

Keep us posted on how things go and great luck!

Mike

I had to add the hyphens in too many words to foil attempts to add links which I may not approve of to my post. Aren't ads at the top and sides enough?

Mike .... do you think that the operators of the very extensive garden web forums are raking in the big bucks? If you object to the way that they defray the costs of providing these forums ... which you do not approve of ....then contact them. I personally will ignore any response with hypenated words, much more annoying than the hypertext on some words....

dlmka ... zone 5 ... how long is your growing season? As others have commented, won't most of the life of the garden be in the summer vacation? Here is a link to an organization which provides guidance for school gardens ... it is based in IL, so short season must be a part of their plans. Good luck with your plans.

Here is a link that might be useful: School Garden Wizard

I would focus on the spring and fall gardens. Peas, spinach, lettuces, in the spring, and then perhaps something simple like a buckwheat cover crop during the summer months to keep down maintenance. Then, in late July/early August you can start your fall garden with beets, carrots, fall peas, broccoli, cumcumbers etc. Obviously if you are trying pumpkins they will have to be there the whole time, but buckwheat is a great way to improve the soil when cultivated in, it is fast growing and it maintenance free.

I plan on this being more of a community garden on school grounds open to families with kids in the school. Of course if the teachers want to use it as a teaching aid and part of their cirriculm that would be GREAT! The main goal is to get fresh produce in the homes of people that are interested in learning and working but also be fun for the kids after all it is 'theirs'.

I recently retired from a public school job where we had an outdoor education facility with a greenhouse, outdoor classroom, gardens, etc,. My wife taught there and we were instrumental in establishing the facility and watching it grow over the last 12 years. Here's a few ideas that I can pass along to you.

Make raised beds for planting. 4'X 8, 10, 12, 16. This will hold a lot of plants and it's easy for the children to work in the garden. With the age of these children you may even want 3 or even 2 foot raised beds. K thru 2 is pretty young for this type of activity). You can also grow in large containers.

As several posts have already mentioned, what do you do in the summer time? Vegetable crops are difficult due to the growing season of planting and seeing the end results before summer or the class moving on to the next grade level. Coordinating with the teachers can be a challenge. Some just don't share your enthusiasm about gardening, facts of life. So, some of the short season crops like lettuce, radish and the like planted in early spring may be harvested before school is out for the summer. Kids seem to like a salad bar that includes their own grown vegetables.

All that I can think of right now is all of the problems that we had trying to get teachers and parents involved with this project. If the teachers like it it will be successful and if not, it will be a struggle. However, my advise is keep it simple, make it enjoyable and let the children take ownership of the garden. Give them guidance and your patience. This is a wonderful undertaking and you will learn as much as the children. Hopefully, there is someone to continue this idea thru 3r-4th grades and beyond.
Then we get into the problem with state testing and that's a whole different subject. Good Luck!

Luke

The school administration is very interested in the idea and have already communicated ideas to expand to other schools in the district and integrate parts of it to the classroom. This year I'll be happy to get approval to put a garden in and have 3-4 families actively participating through the summer and fall. If we can show the powers that be something positive coming out of the project we'll look into building raised beds and a permanent fence.

I think this is a fantastic idea! I second the ideas of focusing the bulk of it on cool weather veggies - especially lettuce. My kids love salad from the garden and I don't think they'd ever have eaten a radish if they hadn't planted it themselves :). When does your school let out for the year? Ours goes until June and you can easily get some peas harvested by that date if everything is ready to go. Snow peas may be the way to go...

Also, one other idea would be to give them each a seedling at the end of the year. Like a dwarf romaine lettuce seedling or it could even be for a zinnia - let them know they can plant it at home or at a grandparent's house, in the ground or in a pot. Hopefully, some adults in their lives will also get excited about gardening things and growing their own food.

I love to add alyssum to my veggies. It brings a nice carpet of color and helps keep down the weeds. Alyssum will also attract beneficial insects :)

If the purpose of this project is to get the kids(and their parent ?) interested, then you have to plant things that yield crops in shorter time. For examle:
bunching onions, chives, lettuce, parsley, dills, basils,
cucumbers (NO MELONS YET), green beans, peas...
The key is to awaken that interest in them first.

Hi dlmka,

Great idea you have here!

Are you familiar with Tomato Bob's? You may be interested in their 'Seeds for Schools' offer.

Good luck and wish you much success.

Rick

Lots of good advice already. Quick crops, easy to pick and eat. Nothing that might look edible but is bad for you. Hope you get a few great helpers but set things up initially so you can maintain whatever you plant yourself. It must be kept neat, unlike some home gardens. Like luke_oh, I've had people who expressed a willingness to help but left after a short time. Frustrating....so start small. Focus on early spring crops and flowers (bulbs) and late summer plantings for fall harvest if you plan to primarily have classrooms visit the garden.

I work part time at a school nature center/agriscience center. We have a garden area that we use for educational programming with elementary age students. Mostly, we try to plant the area in a way that is fun and "pretty" to lure the garden shy to to take a look....and get educated at the same time :) Several well planned signs can help with the education part.

The attached photos show a few things we have tried.

Herb wheels....herbs planted in among the spokes of a wheel from old farm machinery...ties in with our agriscience/farm theme and makes for some tasty cooking. A chef came and helped 2 classroom harvest, wash, chop (they loved using real knives), and cook a vegetable soup to eat. The herbs really added to the taste.

Sunflower house.....found out later there is a children's book with that title that is very fun to read aloud with kids while sitting with giant sunflowers arching overhead. A double row of sunflowers screens the hideaway well. It gives you a chance to use some short varieties in the outer row that will bloom at kid height while still keeping the mammoths that are so awesome high above.

Life cycle garden.....let various plants grow past normal harvest time and flower and produce seed. Lettuce and radishes are fun ones to do. Early plantings will produce seed in one season unlike some biennials like beets, carrots, and turnips. We have had kids harvest the radish seeds and plant the next crop with them. It's fun to see where the seeds come from and realize you don't always HAVE to buy them....although that is often easier and lessens the chance of crossed seeds. This garden was difficult to keep looking neat and pretty, but it is a favorite of mine. We tried for successive plantings to show several stages in the plant's growth.

Barn and barnyard theme garden....ties in with our agriscience emphasis done by older students in a different area. It is fun to try to come up with plant names that have a tie in with the farm theme, ie. hen and chicks, eggplant, lamb's ear. We picked up a few inexpensive garage sale/thrift store items to enhance the animal name themes and decorate the planting. I've seen other gardens that have different themes they focus on......ie, outer space with cosmos, moon and stars watermelon.....you get the idea....maybe have children join in searching seed catalogs for cool names that would tie in with the theme....Oh, no, you might create an addict who spends inordinate amounts of time reading catalogs like I do!

ABC garden...26 small areas each planted with things that start with each of the letters of the alphabet....makes for an interesting and creative exercise just to come up with the plant list....so far we are stuck with Xolhp for "X"....Phlox spelled backwards....a favorite of the dyslexic. Variety names and even letters within the plant names are sometimes used...ie table Queen bush squash for "Q". I've heard of people trying to do the ABC theme with only tomato varieties or pepper varieties or flowers. (Anyone have Quinoa, Xena lettuce or Xananthemum seed they would care to trade or share?)

Pizza garden.....ingredients for pizzas....we had a sign up for awhile suggesting they hike over to the barn after their garden visit to see the pigs...growing pepperoni and ham for pizza :) I've seen salsa themed gardens and spaghetti themed ones, too. Just pick a kid favorite.

Local farm commodities.....grow a small area with a crop that is grown by farmers in your area. What drives the farm economy in your state?

Sorry this post is so long but maybe our experiences and photos will stir some more ideas for what would work in your area. I hope your garden does well and I hope many children come to see it and learn from it. It is amazing to see and hear how little many children and their parents know about where their food comes from. Time in your garden can give them knowledge to make good food choices now and later in life and can be alot of fun, too.

Here is a link that might be useful: School garden 2009

Thanks for all the support and good ideas. I started an open group on Facebook that I've shared with our school administration as feedback to show support without innundating them with emails and phone calls. Check out the link below if you are a facebook user and "Become a Fan". Thanks.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wilson School Garden