How to Create and Sustain a Living Classroom
By Jesse Hersh
All photos courtesy Jesse Hersh
Students harvest tomatoes for bruschetta
So you’re convinced your school needs a garden. Perhaps you’re a parent who wants your child to experience the joy of pulling a fresh carrot from the ground, or a teacher in need of a place to reenergize. Maybe you’re a principal looking to distinguish your school; provide an outlet for learners with special needs; and engender a sense of community between parents, students and faculty.
No two school gardens could or should be alike, but a few general concepts will guide any successful program. Embrace whatever challenges you face, and you will end up with a garden that uniquely serves your children and community.
Form a Committee
Interested parents, faculty and community members are ultimately the backbone of your garden. Ideal candidates have backgrounds in nutrition, gardening and education. Assign tasks, set deadlines and bring seasonal snacks to the meetings!
Choose Your Garden Space
A blank slate for a school garden
Take time choosing the location. Check with administrators and maintenance for restrictions. Identify utility lines. Take lots of photos. You will use these as “before” pictures to show off your garden later.
The ideal site receives a full day of sun and is unobstructed to the south by tall trees or buildings (or the north for gardeners in the southern hemisphere). Shadier spots will limit your success with sun-loving species such as tomatoes, corn, pumpkins and peppers. Make sure that water is available and accessible.
Perform a Soil Test
For less than $20, you can have the soil tested. This is important, especially if a site is located against any building constructed (and painted) before 1978. This is the year lead was banned from paint. I have yet to find harmful amounts of lead in soils, but it’s worth testing. Your results will also tell you if your soil lacks any essential nutrients.
Design Your Garden
A bountiful first summer in the new garden
Observe the space at all hours of the day and all seasons of the year. Create a map that includes orientation, shade, soil quality, natural drainage patterns, existing elements and irrigation. Note surrounding views, good or bad; animal sightings; and any other observations particular to the site. Read Rosemary Alexander’s The Essential Garden Design Workbook for inspiration.
Ideally, a landscape designer/architect joins your committee or offers to provide consultation. If not, seek one out among parents or community members. Even simpler, tour another school garden or review a book on the subject. Though the ultimate design should be determined by consensus, assign someone to compile design ideas, draft plans for the committee to comment on, and then select one that works for the site and all involved.
Decide On Features
At its most basic, a school garden can be a path around a raised bed with a nearby picnic table. A small class could plant seeds, water them, measure their growth and harvest the bounty. But to provide a space that brings learning to life and is useable by the entire school, figure these elements into your outdoor living classroom:
Vegetable scraps from the cafeteria returning to the garden
Compost Pile: Without one, your garden will require constant input of fertilizers. Consider linking the cafeteria with the compost pile to provide a source of nutrients for your growing garden. Students with “a lot of energy” are often the ones most interested in pushing the wheelbarrow full of scraps to the compost pile.
Fruit Trees: No explanation necessary.
A Flower Bed: Cut flowers make great subjects for illustration. They also brighten classrooms, garden events and school-grown salads – especially calendula, borage and nasturtium. Let students grow their own Mother’s (and Father’s) Day gifts.
Wheelchair Accessible Pathways: Disabled students are some of the most frequent visitors to the school gardens. Gardens provide a much-needed outlet for students who have trouble engaging in the usual classroom activities for any number of reasons.
Make sure that every major garden element is wheelchair accessible with four-foot-wide paths on a durable surface. If elements are unreachable by wheelchair, include representations of each element—a dwarf fruit tree in a container, a compost pile, or raised garden beds—in a place that is accessible.
Choose the Right Plants for Your School Garden
Peek over fences and talk with vegetable/fruit growing neighbors near the school. Neighbors are usually more than willing to share their successes with you. If you’re lucky, they might give you a sample. Ask what varieties work best for them.
Choose species and varieties that bloom and fruit during the school year and those that produce lots of small fruit rather than a few large fruit. This makes sharing easier. Figs, mandarins, loquats and guavas meet this need in subtropical climates. Go with raspberries, mulberries and strawberries in cooler climates. Plant berries and sunflowers everywhere!
Build Community
Salad from scratch, garnished with calendula
This “invisible” piece happens to be the most important. The more people who utilize the garden, the better are its chances for long-term survival. When possible, build the garden into school culture.
For example, host a yearly harvest party, where parents and students cook food produced in the school garden or bring something homemade to share. Decorate tables with cut flowers from the garden. Create a “Farmer’s Market Coordinator” PTA position and ask parents to donate crafts, fruit, vegetables, and homemade goods to an after-school sale once a month. Offer seasonal produce from the garden, as well as seed packets harvested and illustrated by students. Redirect profits to build garden infrastructure.
Seek out parents with special skills (art, carpentry, landscape design and fundraising) and request help creating signage, building seedbeds, designing new garden areas, and writing grants. More involvement equals a greater sense of ownership.
Fund Your School Garden
A student illustrates Elephant Head Amaranth during a lunchtime garden club
School gardens can improve everything from student health and behavior, to test scores and hand-eye coordination. Considerable research backs these claims. Find it and use it to your advantage when presenting your case to possible donors.
Seek out donors with a vested interest in health and environmental issues. A “seed” grant combined with buy-in from a few teachers, a PTA member, and the principal is all you need to get started. Apply for grants through your PTA or a local nonprofit organization.
Likely donors include corporations, plant nurseries, supermarkets and garden clubs. Organize an annual event to raise money for the garden. This could mean selling tickets to a dinner hosted by a committee member or the school and catered by volunteers, with food donated by local farms. Don’t be afraid to ask for money; people enjoy giving, especially when their gift enriches the lives of children.
Western Tiger Swallowtail drinks nectar from Echinacea Purpurea
School gardens are popping up everywhere. Each is unique. And like any living thing, each needs a lot of care in its infancy. But, as with your students, your greatest hope is to create something that takes on a life of its own.
Start small. All your hard work will pay off when the first Tiger Swallowtail butterfly lands in your garden during a classroom visit.
Jesse Hersh, M.S. Environmental Education, currently manages two school garden programs in Goleta, California. Examples of his work can be seen at Ouroboros Landscape Revival. He has also worked as a gas station attendant, nurseryman, wilderness guide, and surf instructor.
