Growing Funds for Your School Garden

The School Garden Network is please to announce the awards for the 2015 Outdoor Edible Garden Mini-Grants. The following schools were congratulated at a recent School Garden Network meeting - Congratulations to: 
Bacon Academy, Colchester; Great Neck Elementary, Waterford; Integrated Day charter, Norwich; Jennings Elementary, New London; Kelly Middle, Norwich; Mary Morrisson Elementary, Groton; Robert E. Fitch Senior High, Groton, Stonington High and Voluntown Elementary.

Fundraising is a consistent question that comes up for schools that are planning,
maintaining, or expanding a garden. Grants are helpful for many school gardens, but are certainly not required! Many schools have found success with raising funds on their own, with or without grant support. Conversations with garden coordinators from around New London County have helped us build this list of best practices for school garden fundraising. What is your strategy for supporting your school garden?

Create a wish list
It’s easier to ask for resources if you know exactly what you need. Putting garden needs into a list format helps encourage people to give what they can, and see where their donation is making a difference. Information to include: number of items needed, cost if bought new, and whether used items would suffice. Also consider putting volunteer hours or specific skills on your list!
 
Ask for help
The response may overwhelm you! Many people are excited to donate or volunteer for a project they can see directly benefits their kids or community. Seek help within your school – parents, students, staff – as well as from businesses, non-profits, and garden enthusiasts in the surrounding community. Make a plan to recognize donors and volunteers. 

 Share your garden story or vision
Get people excited about helping by sharing how the garden will benefit students, stories about what you’ve already accomplished, and your vision for moving forward. Consider developing a 30-second “elevator speech” to share with people on the fly, writing a garden column in your school newsletter, or starting a garden Facebook page to share photos, videos, and quotes. You can also share your story with us – we’ll help you write your story for publication in local newspapers, or across the county via our blog!  http://nlcountyschoolgardennetwork.blogspot.com.

Plan in phases
Some of the most-repeated advice from experienced school garden coordinators in New London County, is to start small and grow from there. This is excellent advice overall, and especially when funds are limited. Set a yearly goal that feels achievable, and build on your success with a new goal each season! Many schools would like to have a greenhouse, as who wouldn't, but starting with a cold frame, while raising funds and clearing land for a larger greenhouse project is a great way to get started.

Think outside the “stuff”
While some material objects are certainly needed for a garden, consider how you can make use of skills and expertise to achieve the same results. Is there a local handyman or woman who can build a compost barrel instead of buying one? A parent who has experience writing grants, or who has a lumber yard or garden shop? A student who is a great photographer or social media guru? Many people have multiple skills to share, or can develop skills they don’t even know they have!

Include everyone
At our recent Network meeting, one Norwich teacher told us that her strategy was to just say “yes” to everyone who offered to help. “Whatever they had to give, I found some way to incorporate it,” she said. “Then they were invested, and they got other people invested, and it just grew from there.” While we recognize that this exact strategy may not work for everyone, cultivating an inclusive attitude is definitely recommended!

Stay tuned for a list of resources generated at our last meeting - hardware materials, curriculum resources and planting materials.  

Have a great day in the garden everyone!

Smart Ideas for Building Your School Garden Team

Laying the Groundwork
 

Building your Garden Team:

Create a School Garden Logo and start a Blog (read below)

Interested in starting a school garden program? Share your ideas with school  administrators and get approval for further exploration. Other people to include in the discussion are fellow teachers, school facilities staff, curriculum coordinator, any Food Corp members that might be in your school district and of course, grounds and maintenance staff, your schools food service staff. You'll also need to build community support for a school garden. Consider contacting neighborhood associations, local civic organizations, garden clubs, the UConn Master Gardeners, or UConn Extension Services for input and support. Many community supports can be found at the New London County School Garden Network, which meets quarterly.
Most important, get students and their parents talking about the garden. Students should be involved in every step of the process. Kids and teens who have a say become more invested in school gardens, take better care of them, and take the lessons more to heart.

Digging In:

Hold brainstorming sessions to set goals for the garden. You may want to have a series of meetings — some just for students during school hours, and others for interested students, staff, parent-teacher group members, and other community members on an evening or weekend.

Ask participants to consider these questions:

• What are the main reasons for having the garden? These might include providing food for snacks or meals, serving as a teaching tool, or giving students an outlet for physical activity.
• How will the crops be used? Possible answers include "by the cafeteria staff," "in classrooms," "to raise money for the school," or "donated to a food pantry."
• How can teachers use the garden in the curriculum? How can a garden help students understand certain subjects better? Encourage participants to think of applications for every school subject.
• How will the garden be shared? Discuss which classes will participate in the garden and whether each should have its own assigned space, share space, or both. Discuss whether students will be allowed in the garden only during class time or also during recess and after school.

This is a good time to start thinking about management and care of the garden. The garden will need a coordinator (or coordinators) to oversee its use and keep an eye on maintenance needs. You'll also want to decide who will be responsible for the garden during school breaks. Some schools incorporate school gardens into summer learning and enrichment programs, while others have volunteers from the neighborhood or civic groups care for the garden.


Fun Ways to Get the Input from Students and School Staff:

Start a page on your website, start a blog. It's easy using Google's Blogger - for example, visit the Oswegatchie Elementary School Blog.  At Lillie B. Haynes Elementary School in East Lyme, CT, the "Ask the Green Thumb" box was hung in the school hallway, just inside the school garden. It was suggested by fourth grade teacher, Catherine Ellal. The original idea was to read (or have video) of answers for the school news broadcast. Kids have been asking so many questions that now School Garden Coordinator Jen McMahon types up answers and put them on courtyard door. "The current thought is to provide something for each grade to enjoy, K-4, even if it's sitting out there for snack on a sunny spring day", says Ms. Mahon.

Ask a Green Thumb Box

Ideas at Lillie B. Haynes for this year's school garden include: 

•  A hungry caterpillar garden featuring art with the kindergarten classes
•  A butterfly garden, with first grade students 
•  Life cycle of a plant through vegetables, with second grade students
  
• Rock garden - geology lessons, with third grade students 
• Composting and early colonists herbs and Native American practice of planting 3 sisters (beans, corn and squash), with fourth grade students

How are you getting your garden started?  Share your plans and ideas!

Starting Seeds Indoors and in the Greenhouse

A presentation by Arthur Lerner of FRESH New London, with input from the New London County School Garden Network members.

The first question to ask is, “Are seeds alive?” – the answer… of course.  So, storing seeds is important. A cool dry place with low humidity is best. A good rule-of-thumb is to think of the number 100. Seeds should be kept at less than 100 degrees and less than 100% humidity. At FRESH New London, seeds are often stored in a portable cooler.  It keeps the seeds at a constant temperature - other thing to monitor, keeping the conditions from fluctuating too much.

Germination:  A quick overview of the parts of the seed:  The seed is like an egg with the shell on the outside (which is like the bran of the seed); the white of the egg gives the yoke nutrients to grow, (which is like the endosperm of the seed); and then in the middle is the yoke (which is like the germ of the seed). All three parts have an important job to do!

Before planting it is important to learn how to read the seed package. This gives you the class and variety, short summary of the plants characteristics and most important, the sowing instructions. This gives you the yield to expect or how many seeds should germinate or the germination rates,- these can be fun to calculate with the students as part of a math lesson. The packet usually tells you how long it will take to germinate, how closely to plant them and how long it will take to fruit or flower.

 Soil preparation: Preparing the soil is important. To germinate the seed has to Arthur recommends using a “soil-less” potting mix or seed starting mix that has the appropriate fertilize added. If you just pour water on top of the soil after the seed has been planted it won’t absorb, it might run off, taking the seed with it. So it is better to hydrate the soil first, getting to a light consistency where you really can’t squeeze more than a drop out of it. Too wet and it will harm your seeds and form clods.

If you choose to make your own seedling mix, you can use the following recipe:

•     4 parts sphagnum moss
•     4 parts perlite OR an equal mixture of perlite and vermiculite
•     1/4 Tablespoon dolomite lime per gallon of mix to adjust for pH and add calcium and lime

Creating healthy soil

You can also use coir. Some schools are even making their own soil blocks, like they do at the FRESH New London farm.

Containers: Using containers in the classroom or green house are great. Some schools use premade containers or planting trays, others use cardboard egg cartons and poke a hole in the bottom for drainage.  The cardboard container can be planted right into the ground, all the way up to the top of the container. There are also planting pods made out of manure, but they are expensive. Some suggested that Kurieg cups can be used to sprout then the plant can be transplanted. Whatever the container, it is important that they have good drainage and that they are kept where temperature are around 70 degrees or higher, in order for the seed to germinate. If the temp falls below 60 degrees, germination will slow or the seed with rot. 

Planting depth:  Of course following the sowing instructions is important, and a good rule of thumb is plant the seed three times the width of the seed. There is a temptation to plant the seed deep, but this causes the seed to not sprout.

Light: Ambient light is enough light for germination. After the seed sprouts the light must be about 6” above the plant and able to raise as they grow. Florescent lighting needs to have full spectrum to ensure that vegetative growth continues to include flowing and fruiting. This time of year, light coming through the window is not enough. Newer schools may have UV light protection on the windows, making more challenging to start plants in the classroom.

Hardening Off: This involved toughening up the small plant to withstand outdoor light, temperatures and wind. A cold frame can be used or Susan Munger, from UConn's Master Gardener Program suggests bringing plants outdoors, an hour at a time, then gradually increasing the amount of time, over a week or so. "If plants are put out in the hot sun they can get sunburned", says Munger.

Try various kinds of containers for starting seeds.

Watering: For seeds to germinate, it has to imbibe water. The seed expands and the food supply becomes active to nurture the germ. This can be a fun thing for kids to learn – to handle the seeds, soak them overnight or put in a wet paper-towel.  If the seed and the soil are well hydrated it is foreseeable that you won’t have to water until the seedling pokes up through the soil.  Over and under-watering can be an issue, especially when multiple people are overseeing it. Arthur suggests watering using a schedule or log, so proper watering can be monitored.  Using a watering tray that allows for watering from the bottom, which is one way to water without disturbing the seed. Food Corp Member Chelsea Hahn, shared that she tells the kids, “The seeds would rather be a little thirsty than swimming”.

Suggestions on What to Plant: You can start now planting some salad greens (mesclun and brassica, etc.). Wait for planting zinnias, tomatoes, and peppers until late March. Arthur recommend the book, “Seed to Seed”, by Suzanne Ashworth. What is your school garden program planting right now?

Composting: There are always questions about composting, what to put in the compost. There is interest in learning more about composting, worm composting, using compost tea, etc. Stay tuned for our upcoming Blog post about "all things compost."

School Gardening - Getting Started

When designing an outdoor edible school garden, the first question you should ask is, "What is the goal of our garden"? Is it  to provide children with a garden club experience after-school or is it to provide classrooms with experiential learning of core standards - or somewhere in between?  There are so many design features to consider, so the purpose of your garden is really important.  Of course, there are many ways to go about it. Some schools plan their garden based on their current budget or the kinds of donated building materials they have, while other schools want to build a garden area for each grade or classroom. All fun things to consider when designing your garden.

We like the idea of having as much flexibility as possible and starting small. Some school garden programs begin as an after-school program, and quickly move in the direction of a multidisciplinary learning tool for science, math language and arts. With teachers becoming more excited about using the garden as a learning tool, school garden lessons are making their way into curriculum, school garden policies are being adopted and the daily school culture of learning, growing, tasting, and harvesting fresh fruit and veggies is changing school cafeterias. Still other school garden programs donate food to local community organizations and food banks - amazing!  So what's the purpose of your garden?

Marcia Benvenuti, Jen McMahon and Tom Kalal at Haynes Elem. School

Just as your school was thoughtfully designed, your new outdoor classroom should be carefully arranged to meet the needs of those who will use it. Here are some tips and resources for getting started:

1. Create a planning team consisting of students, teachers, school administrators, groundskeepers, parent volunteers, and community representatives as a resource for suggesting ideas to be incorporated into the design. 
2. Choose the site of your garden: consider shade and sun, access to water, proximity to classrooms and possible access points by the community, shared vs. exclusive space, exposure to wildlife and safety.
3. Once a garden site has been selected the appropriate size should be planned. Some schools have a limited amount of space for a garden and size has already been predetermined. In this situation, careful planning will insure that every square foot is allocated for the best possible planting advantage. Consider the following:

Large or Small, your School Garden will be Something Special

• Numbers of teachers and students who will use the garden
• Kinds of plants to be included and their space requirements
• Size of pathways (wide enough for wheelchairs, wheel barrows and maintenance)
• Space for storage to hold tools and supplies
• Area for composting
• Room for greenhouse or cold frame
• Areas for container and vertical gardens
• Spaces for permanent plantings such as vines, trees, and shrubs
• Areas to place tables for class instruction and for potting benches
• Number and sizes of beds (there are pluses and minuses to raised and in-ground bed planting)
• Resources and materials available for construction and start-up costs
• Start up money and annual budget available for garden expenses  

Garden Plan at Uncas Elementary School, Norwich, CT

Designing your garden can be a fun experience and there are a lot of resources to help you design a garden that's just right for your school. Draw out your design on paper or use stickies to move around elements of your garden, trying different configurations. Name your garden, perhaps after a former teacher, principal or student, to add a personal touch. Some schools even have created a special logo to promote their garden. Watch for garden promotion and community involvement ideas in our upcoming blog post!

In the meantime, check out Getting Started and Designing Your Garden, or get more information by access the resources listed in the margin of this blog and attending one of our upcoming New London County School Garden Network meetings!  

Our next meeting will be held on April 29, 2015 at 3:30 at the FRESH New London office at 45 Broad Street. New London. Contact Cindy at 860-448-4882 ext 302 for more information.

Have a cool idea to share? Email it to us (with photos, if possible) to: CBarry@llhd.org