Getting Started

Things to Think About When Planning the School Garden

• Before you start planning be sure to speak with school administration so you know what space and funding is, or can be made, available.
• Talk with all teachers who want to be involved so they can take part in the planning and can work gardening into their curriculum.
• Choose a site that gets direct morning sunlight, and doesn’t compete too much with the hazards of footballs and basketballs.
• The most logical time to start a school garden is September, but if that didn’t happen this year don’t panic, anytime is a good time to garden in Southern California!
• Plant things to EAT right away
  Snap peas and cherry tomatoes are immediately inviting and familiar to most kids. However, I have had students who love eating raw kale. The garden is a great opportunity to introduce unusual flavors and the practice of trying new things. Unfortunately, many schools don’t have kitchens designed for student use, so if you plant things you can eat raw your students can still enjoy the garden with their tastebuds.
• Plant things that REWARD patience
  Carrots take a long time to fully develop and you can’t check on their progress. Once pulled, you can’t put them back in the ground to grow a little more. Potatoes are another slow but very rewarding plant to harvest. Harvesting potatoes is often compared to hunting for gold by garden writers.
• Plants you can WATCH become food
  Tomatoes and peas are (again) excellent examples. These two support curricula about the life cycle of a plant. You start with the seed. The seed becomes a plant with leaves and buds. The buds flower. The petals fall or wither to reveal the recognizable vegetable!
• Plants that BRING BIRDS and BUGS
  Some of these aren’t edible to us, but are very attractive to interesting bugs. For example, many pollinators, such as hummingbirds and butterflies are attracted to flowering salvias for their nectar. Sunflowers provide a good treat for small songbirds (and humans alike). And we can guarantee that planting a school garden will multiply your earthworm population!

Thinking Outside the (Vegetable) Box
In planning a school garden don’t get trapped into thinking vegetables are the only stars. Fruit trees and vines offer an on-going, and very productive, educational opportunity that can often be easily worked into a school’s landscape. Need a vining plant to provide shade? Try planting a grape or kiwi vine. And with all this focus on growing things, let’s not forget about the important role of decomposition in the garden cycle. Setting up a compost pile or worm composting bins is a great way to teach kids about how nature recycles nutrients, while helping the school reduce it’s waste stream.