I’m amazed every time I visit friends and family in New England how many school gardens there are. In Seattle, we have a growing season that overlaps the school year quite a bit due to our maritime climate. New England has a much harsher climate. I remember many a harvest soon after Labor Day due to an impending frost growing up. I know that gardening techniques have improved and the climate is changing as well, and on my trips back East I’m seeing vibrant school gardens everywhere! This photo is from Reiche Elementary School in Portland. My daughter’s apartment overlooks the playground and gardens. The garden was in great shape in July, so it is being tended this summer. It looks like there will be good food to harvest when the kids return to school in September. I’ll be back to New England again in two weeks, to Burlington, VT, for the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference (http://farmtocafeteriaconference.org/6/). I’m excited!
Great looking spuds!
Geneva Elementary School garden in Bellingham, WA
Yesterday I talked about the process of writing Our School Garden! at Geneva Elementary School in Bellingham. I spoke to the entire fifth grade and some of the fourth grade there. Their garden is supported by Common Threads Farm and is part of the Whatcom County School Garden Collective. It’s definitely worth following the link and reading about the program. I plan to follow up with a visit this summer to check out the summer in the garden programs that they run for kids and teens.
I was at Geneva at the request of an old friend, Mark Danielson, who is a fifth grade teacher at the school. I had a great time and even got to take in his son’s band, The Odd Ones, who played at an after school event. They were impressive! I hope to return at a future date.
I get asked a lot about how to care for school gardens during summer when school is out. I came across a nice article that outlines different approaches being taken at schools in Vermont, although I would add one more–have volunteers harvest the food for local food banks. Here’s the link:http://www.addisonindependent.com/201206summer-volunteers-tend-school-gardens
I live two blocks from Greenwood Elementary School in Seattle. I knew that they were adding a school garden and this week the beds appeared! All they need is soil and seeds! They picked a great spot, south facing in front of the brick building, so veggies should grow well and quickly. My top five reasons for creating a school garden are: as outdoor classrooms they bring students into contact with nature; I believe that students learn best through direct hands-on experience (and research backs me up on this), which school gardens provide; school gardens can be used to promote healthy eating habits; working in the garden encourages students to engage with each other around common tasks and in a cooperative way; and school gardens provide students opportunities to connect to the community. For the last point, community connections, I strongly encourage schools to dedicate at least some of their produce for the local school bank. I hope to eventually get down to Madison Elementary School in Olympia to view the program that they are doing in partnership with the Thurston County Food Bank that has kids at the school “buying” (with school created money) food to bring home from a farm stand that is made up of school grown produce and food bank produce that goes with recipes that the students have actually used in cooking projects at the school!
I have lots of author appearances in May in the Seattle area:
Saturday May 5th, I’ll be at the Seattle Tilth Spring Plant Sale where I’ll be presenting from 11 to 11:30;
Saturday, May 12, I’ll be signing books at the ORCA spring plant sale at 10:00 AM (by the way, the garden educator at ORCA, Anthony Warner, recently used Our School Garden! with his classes: http://orcagarden.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/kale-flowers-school-gardens-and-a-soggy-day/
Saturday, May 12, I’ll be presenting as part of a fundraiser for Page Ahead at Elliot Bay Books @ 11:30 AM;
Wednesday, May 16, I’ll be presenting at Third Place Books Ravenna, 7:00 PM;
Sunday, May 20th, I’ll be signing books at the Celebration of Food Festival at the Lynnwood Convention Center from 12 to 2 PM.
Our School Garden! being read at ORCA School.
Rick Swann will be doing a presentation on school gardens and a book signing of Our School Garden! at Leap to Green, an Earth Day celebration tomorrow, Saturday, at 12:45 to 1:45 at the Mercer Island Community and Event Center, 8236 SE 24th St., Mercer Island, WA. Hope to see you there!
This last weekend I dropped by the Seattle Children’s Playgarden, which several people had told me about. This is the blurb from their web site: Liz Bullard, Executive Director and the heart and soul of the PlayGarden, has worked with hundreds of children with challenges such as autism, cerebral palsy, and hearing or vision impairments. Watching as these children and and their parents work day by day to help their children succeed. Days filled with appointments, therapies and doctors. A schedule so intense, most adults would buckle under, and at the end of the day, these hard working kids deserve an opportunity to play. Children with special needs don’t have the same choices as typically developing kids. Children with cerebral palsy cannot access play equipment, even if the park itself is accessible. Children with autism don’t heed common dangers in parks that are not fenced. Parents of children with special needs often leave an outing in a park discouraged and exhausted. What can be pure pleasure for most kids can be a nightmare for families with children with special needs. The PlayGarden is a place where children of all abilities can come and play, simply play outdoors with their friends and siblings in spaces that are accommodating, nurturing, and encourage their potential.
Both the garden component and the playground areas look great. I especially loved the topiary!
I was walking in my old neighborhood this week end and walked by my son’s former elementary school, Wedgwood, in Seattle. They have a wonderful school garden. In addition to a small green house, there are fruits and vegetables as well as native plants. The garden sits along the fence that marks the edge of the school property on the north side of the playground. It is skinny, but very long, maybe a couple of hundred feet or so. It looks like the entire school utilizes it. It is very well organized and well labeled. I was glad to see an area of the garden designated for growing food for the local food bank. There was extensive composting going on as well. I wish it had been in existence when my son was attending school there!
This Monday First Lady Michelle Obama will welcome school children from across the country to join her for the fourth annual White House Kitchen Garden spring planting. In 2009, Mrs. Obama planted the White House Kitchen Garden – the first vegetable garden at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden – as a way to start a conversation about the health of our nation’s children. From the beginning, Mrs. Obama has included local school children in the planting and harvesting of the garden and this year has also invited children from across the country who wrote to her about their own gardening experiences.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Story-of-the-White-House-Garden
Sometimes it’s hard to know when it’s spring here. It officially arrives tomorrow, but often by now I’m feeling it. Not this year, with the exception of a couple of days awhile back. My daughter is basking in warm weather across the country in Maine, and we’re bundled up. Usually we’re way ahead of Maine this time of year, although I’m betting that we’ll see a reversal of their weather and ours before too long. Many of our plant starts at school are ready to go, however. I did a book signing of Our School Garden! at the Seattle Tilth March Edible Plant Sale on Saturday and watched lots of people come by and buy plant starts even though it was 38 degrees out at the time. Better weather must be just around the corner!
Plant starts at school.
Rick Swann 