In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners
An informative garden podcast and weekly radio show on 88.9 FM KUCI Irvine, California, hosted by University of California Master Gardeners of Orange County, California. Podcasts cover home horticulture, pest management and sustainable landscape practices. Listen to researched based information on all things gardening. "In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners" airs Thursday mornings on 88.9 FM KUCI from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.
In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners
School Gardens
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The most direct way for kids to learn is through play. Kids love to play in the dirt! Right? So what better combination can there be but to pair up school with a garden? This week on In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners, MG and KUCI Staff Host Bill Brooks talks to fellow MG Joanne Byrd about the magic of School Gardens. School gardens are becoming popular in schools lately and many, many benefits have been discovered after connecting a garden curriculum with the student’s academic success. How is that happening? Bill and Joanne will discuss that plus planning/developing, installing, and maintaining the type of garden best suited for the particular school. The big consideration of FUNDING sources will be covered. Tips and tricks for building and sustaining the school garden will round out the program.
The opinions and views expressed in this program do not reflect those of KDCID management for the UC Board of Regents.
SPEAKER_01This is In the Garden with your host, Bill Brooks, University of California Master Gardener. We're talking today with Master Gardener Joanne Byrd about school gardens. She is a bit of our expert here at the Master Gardeners. So welcome, Joanne. Please tell us a little bit about yourself as well as your interests in school gardens.
SPEAKER_02I've been a Master Gardener since 2008. And one of the first projects that I got involved in was I went through some training by a group out of UC Santa Cruz, Life Lab puts together put together training, and it was really all centered around training you how to work with schools and children in the garden. It kind of interests me a whole lot. And I thought, you know, it'd be fun to give back. And I saw also with my grandkids that they just love working in the garden. And I had a grandparent that taught me gardening and got me hooked from many, many years ago. And I thought, well, this is one of the areas that I'd like to focus on as a master gardener. So that's what I do. I lead a group of uh volunteers that are trained to work with the schools and with youth groups that have gardens like boys and girls clubs or scouts and stuff to let them, you know, to how to work with the uh children in a garden.
SPEAKER_01So I spent 40 years in the classroom. I'm a retired teacher, and our school didn't get a garden until 2014, which was three years before I retired, unfortunately. Could you talk a little bit about the school garden phenomenon? Is this something new?
SPEAKER_02Uh it really isn't. Um actually going all the way back to when uh the first lady of California was Maria Shriver, um, she was the whole uh push behind there was some law legislation passed and there was a book created called Creating and Maintaining Your School Garden. I think over a hundred schools, 200 schools in Orange County itself all got grant money to help the build or create school gardens. So it's been gone on a long time. But the interesting thing about it is that it started out more of a total focus on academics, and it has somewhat changed over the years that now the focus isn't just uh on academics, but a little on nutrition and the obesity epidemic to get children to think of gardens in other ways. So they're still out there.
SPEAKER_01That's good to know. And across the United States, and you may not be able to answer this, but you could tell us a little bit about the trends perhaps. Approximately how many schools or what percentage of schools do you think have a garden? Not enough.
SPEAKER_02How's that? That's I don't know the exact numbers, but I can tell you that when I first started into the pro you know, working with schools in the late 2000s, uh that there that there was no network of people within the state of California or even all of the United States to talk to each other about how to do it. And now there is a pretty strong network. There are conferences that I've been to. There was one in Pasadena a couple of years ago where we had teachers and master gardeners and other interested parties from all over the United States meet to talk about what they're doing with their school gardens. And there's a lot of resources available. So there's online resources, Facebook groups, uh, networking sites that schools and people interested in school gardens can get together.
SPEAKER_01Oh, fantastic. So here's the big loaded question that I know our audience wants to know is why have a school garden?
SPEAKER_02Um, you know, it it interestingly enough, the there was a survey done of all of the schools in California to see if they had a school garden and then what were the results? And so, why should you have a school garden? And we actually have a hook on our website for the PowerPoint presentation with all the details. Um, but what the the main thing is there's still academics being taught in school gardens, and that they find that kids that are involved in a school garden do better in school. They do have better relationships, they learn a lot of cooperation with each other and how to work with others. Um, they learn a lot about better eating and nutrition because they get to eat what's in the garden. Um, and so there's a lot more than just the academics, but the reason you have a school garden is it does teach children a lot, plus it gets them outside in a lot of cases.
SPEAKER_01And so do you know of any impacts of academic success at all? And I know this is this is a hard thing, but we always look at schools as wanting to be academically successful. Um, anything on academic success within a school garden?
SPEAKER_02Well, the this survey or this study did give some statistics and numbers about how some of the successes have occurred. Uh, we actually work with a garden, uh a school garden and uh down in Elisa Viejo that put in a garden, measured some success, and and got an award and went to the White House and met uh back in the day was with President Obama. Um, they were given an award for how well they incorporated the school garden into their school. And so I think that that the numbers are there and the study gives all the details, but off the top of my head I couldn't tell you exactly how what the impacts were. But it it crosses a lot of subject areas. So, you know, a lot of people think, oh, it's math and science is what you're gonna learn in a garden. But what we've actually found is that it's not just art, art and um it's not just math and science, but social studies. So you'll learn about California missions and things that are in a garden uh in California, um art. So a lot of times let the kids do their own artwork in the garden with, you know, signs on plants and stuff like that, and then keeping journals. We always ask the kids to keep a journal of everything that happens and tell stories about what they're doing in the garden. So it reaches beyond the normal math and science subjects, uh, which are important, and they probably are the number one and two that they learn, but they do touch other areas. And when you get up in the age group in the garden, we actually have things for high school level, and I've worked with high schoolers in Orange County that as their high school senior project had to do something and it was related to gardening.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's fabulous because one of the latest buzzwords right now in education is STEM, which is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, as contrasted to STEAM, which is science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics. And that's all the rage in education. And so you're telling me if you could elaborate a little bit more on maybe the art and the writing, because you're also bringing writing and social studies in. So if you have anything to add to the curricular aspect, because this might be good for a parent.
SPEAKER_02There's a there's a lot of information that will be on our that you could look on the Master Gardener website under Youth Gardens that will give you links that there is a whole slew of curriculum that has been developed by various groups, including this California Department of Education, but other groups of activities in the garden that are particularly related to not only the STEM stuff but the STEAM stuff. And so there'll be things about things that you want to do, like write a story about something you have sitting or seeing in the garden. So you're uh, or you know, do paint a picture or draw something related to something in the garden. So it's filled with ideas for teachers or parents or volunteers that are running the school garden to do an activity with the children related to their age group. So you can do the curricular stuff. For example, we always do something about what the parts of a plant with the kindergartners and first graders because that's what they're learning. But the third graders are learning about decomposers, so that's when we start talking about, you know, they they really get into the rolly pulleys and the worms and the decomposers, and then fourth grade, you're you know, you're learning about California missions. So we've had schools that plant a mission garden, and the kids are really researching what did they grow in their gardens? What did they eat back then? So it's it's they're learning the history. In addition, then they're talking about the actual plants in the garden, too. Interestingly enough, we can go really far in the STEM stuff. We have curriculum that you you know, give you a link to curriculum that for an AP physics student in high school can do projects and learn the AP physics and the calculus that's all involved in um composting. Because it's filled with it's filled with, it's actually you you're doing integral integral uh calculus in it, and they're learning all of the information about and and it's like biochemistry, I mean all sorts of things about the decomposers and microphiles and all that other stuff. And it's it was put together by um Cornell University. So there's there's stuff for every age from pre-K to high school.
SPEAKER_01The other question I was going to ask you was about school curriculum, and it sounds like the state of California website, as well as Yeah, Department of Ed.
SPEAKER_02I mean, and then there's all sorts of sites across the United States. So Life Lab has one. There's a within California, there's a group called the California School Garden Network at CSGN.org. You go to their website and it's filled with information and places to get grants to get your garden going, to curriculum, to training for teachers, everything that you need.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's fabulous. You you intrigued me a little bit with a mission garden. Can you tell us what some of the plants might be found in a mission garden?
SPEAKER_02Well, think about what they grew in a mission: olives, grapes, barley. They needed the um a lot of beans. They were they're the top ones. And then uh they wheat. So they grew a lot of wheat and barley, grapes, olives. That that was more in the Southern California. If you actually go down to the mission at San Juan Capistrano, they still have some of the olive trees that were there from when Father Inep Rosera was there. So you either have some memor on some of the things still sitting around in the garden at this time.
SPEAKER_01Wow, I know olive trees live a long time, and that's really cool to go down and and touch something like that. Can you tell us a little bit about the trends and the types of school gardens? Are schools doing just vegetables? Are they focusing on water wise plants, native plants, plants that are part of the curriculum, such as sixth graders planting a papyrus because they study ancient Egypt?
SPEAKER_02Um well, just about all of the gardens grow vegetables. And that's that that's been pretty, you know, pretty clear because the kids are it can it's something that they can relate to more. But what you're fine we're finding is is that you know, with when our we started having the drought, uh more and more native, so they'll have a section of the garden or they'll put aside if they have multiple beds. They might do native plants in one, they might do a butterfly garden to learn about pollinators and bees and things like that. So tying that science in into the class, the uh high schoolers, you know, if they're taking environmental sciences, they're gonna grow something different. So when we do the training, we'll actually talk to what we call theme gardens. You know, for some of the kids, it's a lot of vegetables, you may want to plant a pizza garden. So, what are all the things that you go to make, you know, that you would put vegetables you put on a pizza, or a salsa garden, or a lettuce garden, you know, things like that. So we're looking for themes, and that helps get the kids interested in it. Um, so it's across the board, but I would say 90% of them start with vegetables.
SPEAKER_01And then maybe expand. And I guess a pizza garden would be some basil oregano and tomatoes, and peppers, and peppers, right. Oh, that sounds that sounds tasty. What fun. And so what about a school orchard? Are there schools that specialize or grow fruit trees? And I believe the school could plant a uh fruit tree that would relate to just about any grade levels curriculum.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it depends on the school district. There are school districts in Orange County that they're not allowed to grow fruit trees because of their concerned about pest control. You know, I have a squirrel that loves to visit one of my fruit trees. Anyway, so so it depends on it. So that every school is different. You have to check with the the school district, but a lot of schools do have fruit trees. But I will warn you, schools aren't year-round. And there are certain fruit trees that need a lot of care in the summer when schools are closed and they're not getting watered. So you don't see as many orchards with stone fruit and apples and things like that as you would citrus that is in bloom like it uh in the f the the school year, so that you can grow citrus here. Um but peaches and stuff, what a lot of schools have to do, and what we recommend is to do them in big pots. And we have some schools in Orange County that grow them in a pot, and at the end of the school year, when school gets out, the pot gets moved and some parent takes it home for the summer and takes care of it and then brings it back in September. So, yes, you can grow fruit.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's a good idea.
SPEAKER_02But you have to think about you know, is somebody going to be there in the summer and is it gonna get watered because it will die if you don't have it taken care of?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that would that would be for sure. So it sounds like most schools like to grow a lot of vegetables. And so do you recommend plants that are started from seeds or purchasing already growing ones from a garden center? And just tell us a little bit about the pros and cons of starting by seeds or starting with a young plant.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so because the school year is mostly during the cool season, we do provide schools and teachers with a list of the best cool season crops and um like carrots and radishes, which are on that list, which are things that grow year-round here in in Southern California, we'll tell them by plant which ones to grow from seed versus a transplant. So carrots and radishes actually you should start them from seed, and you know, we'll teach them about it. But things like broccoli, it grows better if you don't start it from seed. But we do have schools that let the kids start it from seed, and that's part of the learning process to learn how a seed grows, like a pea or a or a bean or like I said, broccoli, to see it actually open up and learn the parts and watch it grow. So they'll maybe do that in the classroom and then put it out in the garden when it's grown. So there are things that it's really by vegetable, which ones you do seeds and which ones you don't. Uh and it's really it a lot of it depends on how much room. You know, if if you have a room, you could actually put a zucchini in in our gardens in Southern California, like at the end of February, beginning of March, and get your first zucchini before school went out. But you know, after that and they turn off the water, you know, it's not going to go any further. So it's mostly the what what we see in California are the things that grow it, you know, in the cool season. Strawberries you can get in. Kids love to grow strawberries. And those you would also you can start from bare root or you buy the plants. And so that's really it's how much money do you have, and how much room do you have?
SPEAKER_01Room and money. Because that leads us into planning a school garden. I'd like to talk a little bit about the planning process and the installation of one. In planning for a garden at at my particular school, what do you think would be the ideal amount of space? Do you do you have any idea what that would be besides taking over the whole playground?
SPEAKER_02Um, you know, it really depends on how big you want to start. If there's a a bunch of teachers, like five or six teachers that all want to do it and they have a strong group of volunteer parents that want to work with them, I would have each teacher have their own bed. If there's really just one person with one teacher or one group within the school, start small. Do one bed at a time and build a raised bed, which is what we usually recommend. We don't like a lot of the teachers, we don't have them put it on hard pay, you know, on a hard uh concrete surface or something like that. They have to find a green spot that has water. So it's it's really the planning is the most important decision is where are you putting it, not how many, is does it have water? Does it get eight hours of sun? And is it safe and secure for the children, you know, away from the public and things like that is more important, does it have, you know, a good, it's not going to get flooded and stuff like that. So that's really the things that are more important than how many beds. It, you know, the the beds, uh if you have a success with one bed, then it's easier to grow more and uh it's easier to keep up with it. So probably start small.
SPEAKER_01And I would even imagine involving kids and studying where sunlight is coming from on the ground and in the planning process would be something that would be awesome. And with that, I know California has a lot of clay soil. Some of our schools in the middle of the county have pretty good soil, but I'd imagine most schools need to do a raised bed, especially if they're going to grow vegetables. So tell us about a bed's ideal height and the material that you think works best as a school for building the beds out of. And is is there a material that works particularly well in the bed design?
SPEAKER_02I'm going to use my favorites for it. It depends. Everything is depends. Um we mostly recommend that schools build raised beds and uh do it over soil, you know, in the ground. And the height of the bed and the size of the bed is almost entirely dependent on the age of the kids they're gonna be working in the garden. Because you don't want to have kids walking in the bed. So we never build the beds big enough for kids to walk in. And so if you're working with kindergartners and first graders, you're probably gonna have a bed that's only two or three feet deep so that they're they can walk around all the way and their arms are long enough that they could reach into the center. So you could have it two or three feet deep and you know, like eight feet long. All of the kids that age, you might only want to have it six inches tall, four inches tall. You could use bri old bricks, you could use cinder blocks, whatever, you know, put a cinder block on the ground and put it in a rectangle and fill it with soil, and you got a bed. But if you're doing it with fourth and fifth graders, you may want to have it a foot tall and you may have it four or four feet deep because their arms are longer and they don't need to walk down. So it really is, it's more about accessibility for the children than um so that it's gonna change for as they get older. Now, we also it'd be great if everybody could afford cedar, untreated, you know, you don't want wood that has a lot of treatment on it. We don't want it leaching into the soil because it's things you're gonna eat. Um, so cedar or those, you know, those plastic wood things like the treks or whatever, they would be great too if you could find an Eagle Boy Scout that could build them for you and you have a lot of money. But some of the things that we try to show and provide information is how to do it with almost no money, since nobody has any money to do things like that. So an idea is like is cinder box. Cinderbox are pretty cheap. You can just lay them, they're easy to put down on the ground. If you want them one high, then for younger kids, put two on top of each other. The cool thing about cinder box is you do them on the side so the holes are out, and you can fill the holes with soil and grow things around the edges and then something on the inside. So, really, when we talk about the beds, it's what materials do you have? Do you have an Eagle Scout? Do you have a parent in the school? You know, what we try to get folks to do when you're creating it in the planning is try to get something out on the newsletter to all the families. If anybody has supplies or materials that they want to donate, have a community day or a parent day and bring everybody together and you know see what you have or have people tell, you know, send into the school what info what kind of materials they have, and then try to find people that know how to build them. You'd be surprised how many parents know somebody or is you know, landscaping or as good with a a saw or a some kind of a mechanical device that could help build your beds for you.
SPEAKER_01That that sounds great. And I like the idea of uh Eagle Scout project of reaching out to there. That's something I hadn't thought about. But it sounds to me like you said the important thing is to find an area in the school that's not on a playground. So you would not want to build a bed atop an asphalt playground. Correct. You'd want to find a grassy area that you could convert or a planter area that you can convert. Yeah, to give that shade. So, about how many beds should a school make, would it be best for a bed per grade level or per classroom, or how do you go about doing that and think that through?
SPEAKER_02It it really depends on the teacher involvement, how much the principal is behind it. Um, we have a school in Tustin that every classroom has a bed, and they have a pretty big space, and the principal's behind it, and kids are out in the garden every day. And we have other schools that'll have two guards, you know, a single bed for grade level or only three or four beds for the whole school and everybody take turn. Um, I think part of the difference is when you're planning the garden is to think not only where it is, but what type of garden you want to do. And so we have schools like the school in Tustin that it's part of the everyday academic curriculum, and so kids are there during the school day. But we also have schools, we have one in Laguna Beach, that it's an after-school activity. So it's not part of the everyday, but it's a club that the kids do after school. We have some that are before school or just during lunchtime, and so kids can sign up for it, and it's not related specifically to a teaching environment, but it's a club to learn about it, and they get input from the teachers to feed it, you know, to design activities for the kids to do while they're in the garden. So that'll change, you know, some of the things of how many you'll have, depending on how you what type of garden you have to begin with.
SPEAKER_01So it sounds to me like as we're getting into this planning process of a school garden, that there are all it take your time to plan it, make sure that you're doing it right. Yeah. With that said, what's the ideal medium for putting between the beds for students and teachers to walk on?
SPEAKER_02No mulch, no dripping. Um, you know, a lot of people will just put dirt or DG, you know, like or tiny, tiny stones. Um if you if it you can have concrete, it's not the best, but you want to have it. I mean, if you have kids that have disabilities or wheelchairs, you have to have it accessible to some degree. But I think it's more like don't. Don't put gigantic stones that are hard to walk in or big pieces of mulch that are hard to walk on. You definitely want to have something that's hard and flat. I wouldn't put grass because grass will grow into the garden. That gives you weeds. So it just and and usually plan three feet between each bed so that there's plenty of room for kids on each side and for uh wheelbarrels or other things to work between the beds.
SPEAKER_01So it's three feet, and you basically are thinking about how to keep the mud off of students' feet when they're working in the garden.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01And and then have a material down that is not tripping in used, no mulch.
SPEAKER_02And why is it not the big clunky mulches because it's an uneven surface, and it would be really hard for kids that have either in a wheelchair or have a disability, or even adults working, it's hard to walk on some of that. A lot of times they'll wear flip-flops or shoes, and you know, they'll be running into those materials, so it's probably better not to have heavy mulches around it.
SPEAKER_01Perfect. So we just want to make sure, again, we keep the mud down.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Here in California, we've got to irrigate. And that sounds to me also like that might be the success of keeping a school garden going over the summer months when no one is there. So tell me about drip versus sprinkler irrigation or watering by hand, a little bit about the options there.
SPEAKER_02So we always tell that like about the location of the garden. Is it near irrigation? Well, we'll have the kids water it. Yeah, who's gonna water it over spring break or over the summer or when you have a week off and it's dry and it's hot in May or August, you know, whatever. So we try not to have them be used only by hand watering to be the source of irrigation. Once you decide that you're gonna have it irrigated by a mechanical means, drip is better, but sprinklers work fine. A lot of what we teach is a lot of times they'll have the uh you know, this the old the sprinklers that you know a lot of people have in their lawns, and we'll modify them to be drip and we'll have them work in the beds. Uh so it doesn't it it the more important thing is to have it irrigated versus by hand and then we'll teach them how to how to irrigate it the best way.
SPEAKER_01In planning, you've got to find a sunny area that's not shaded by a tree or building. You want it over dirt, and you need to have a water source to be successful because without the water source it's not going to work. And tell us about fencing. Do school gardens need fences to keep the rabbits and other critters out?
SPEAKER_02Nothing keeps rabbits out. Are you kidding me? Um so I you know, and one of the things that we also look at is the security. So usually you want to have some kind of you know, fencing around where the garden is within the school. It could be totally open, but a lot of schools do have fencing and so I mean do have um rabbits and gophers and things like that. So we teach how to protect from gophers with you know what um wire cloth underneath the the bed. You put that down. And with fencing, a lot of times they'll be putting up, they'll put up chicken wire, other thing, but you have to go down deep in the creep for the rabbit not to go under or for them to bounce over. So they they do that. Working with critters is the one of the things we have to deal with. And some ways it's like, you know, plan enough that we're gonna share with them because we know they're gonna be around. But there are some things that we'll show them with that you can put things over the plants. So instead of building a permanent fence, there are some things that uh with uh netting and stuff like that, you can protect the plants when they're young. Because once they most plants, the rabbits like them when they're young and tender, but once you let them get a little bigger, they stop eating them. And so it's really just a timing thing on a lot of things with rabbits.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so another thing that sounds to me like school should study is if you have rabbits and squirrels and gulfers on your playground and school property, you need to keep that into consideration. Yep. And how you're gonna work with that. And of course, you don't want to put poison out on a school ground. Correct. It probably wouldn't go over well with killing any of these critters either.
SPEAKER_02No, you don't want to do that. So, yeah, it's and part of the some of the training or the things that will help the volunteers, the teachers at work is how to take care of the, you know, to fight against those pests. What most people don't know is that one of the most effective ways to kill pests in a garden, besides the gophers and stuff, is a hose. Having a, you know, so when you have your sprinkler also have a hose there by because just spraying the bugs off the plants kills a lot of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that keeps it organic, which we which which we have to do too. This is in the garden, and we're talking about school gardens with our guest, Joanne Bird. And we're ready to move on. We're t we're talking in the middle about expanding school gardens. So let's talk a little bit about once the garden is established and the newness wears off, how how do you keep the momentum going? A garden club, teacher parent, community leader, what works best?
SPEAKER_02All of the above. Okay. Yeah. Um, so what happens with a lot of schools is that I've worked with that there'll be a parent that has a new child in kindergarten at a school, and they're starting elementary school. The parent was working with the teacher, they get all excited, they get the school garden going, and the teachers may not be involved as much, or they, you know, it's a garden club and they get it going, and then the kid goes through, and all of a sudden, you know, the parents working, they got a couple others, and then the kids in sixth grade, and then they move on to another school, and without that parent, it dies. And so some of the things that will help a school with is how to revive a garden and teach them how to every year work with the volunteers or work with the teachers. So we offer training classes for for teachers, and we actually have a demo garden at a at our uh research, the research station at South Coast Research and Extension Center so that teachers can come out, children can come out, school groups can come out and actually see the different things about how to keep things exciting in the garden. And we'll show how to build a garden, how to create it. Um, and like I said, sometimes the teacher, it's part of the academic, and so the teachers are involved and they want to have it going, but it really does help to get a garden club going and get the PTA involved and the administration of the school to get everybody excited about why there is a garden there and what they can do to keep it going. So the more volunteers, then you keep getting new volunteers and new teachers every year that are doing it and being involved in it. We have a lot of schools that use their garden and they harvest the food that they grow, and one day a week they sell the produce. It's actually they're allowed to do it. Um there's actually a law passed by the state legislature that the school garden could actually sell their produce to the cafeteria, and the cafeteria can buy it and the money can go to the kids. So the kids learn how to sell, how to count money, how to take care of it all, but then the money goes back into the garden, but they sell it to the parents. So you'll have a little sprig of parsley or you know, two radishes and you know, they're 50 cents or a dollar. But we've had a lot of schools raise a lot of money to keep the garden going. And that makes kids excited about it. And if it's self-funding with what um is the food that comes out of it, it uh it helps keep it going because people just think it's gonna be a big money sink that uh I don't, you know, I have to buy new stuff for a year, I have to buy fertilizer, I have to buy pl all these materials. Well, if it keeps going, then they have enough money to keep it going, and the kids get in uh get excited about it.
SPEAKER_01That's a great idea. Your own school's farmer's market. That's fabulous.
SPEAKER_02One school does it every Thursday when at and it's open at the time that the parents pick up the kids at the end of the day. So they walk up to the school and there's uh just a table filled with things that are 50 cents to a dollar or two dollars, and they made over $7,000 last year that paid for the school garden.
SPEAKER_01Well, how big of a space are they using?
SPEAKER_02Do you know what's a pretty big one? They they have a they have a bed for every classroom, so it's pretty big, and the kids eat the food um and the parents are heavily involved in it. So it's it's a good one, but it is completely self-funded.
SPEAKER_01You get some friendly class-to-class competition on the farmers market, I'm sure, is what they're specializing in. So the big the other big question is, of course, most schools have long breaks, especially the summertime. So, what do most schools do with their gardens over the summer?
SPEAKER_02Well, uh, and during the uh some of them go dormant. I mean, so that's why they don't have fruit trees or they don't have third certain things growing, and they'll just um shut it down because they turn the sprinklers off. A lot of schools, the sprinklers aren't working during the summer, so it's not they there's nothing they can do about it. So they grow cool season crops, and when they're leaving at the end of the year, they pick the final stuff, put straw or mulch over it for the summer and just let it sit. Um, and then you know, the parents reopen it, you know, the probably two or three weeks before school starts, somebody goes out there, they turn the sprinklers on and get it going again. We do have some schools though that will allow parents to go in and work on the garden if they have fruit trees. Um, there's a school that what they do is the sixth graders at the end of the school year plants pumpkins in a big part of the garden that usually has lots of different vegetables, and they fill the garden or they almost fill it with pumpkins, and they have two or three parents from the sixth grade class that agree to take care of it during the summer and they grow pumpkins, and the kids move on to the next grade, and the new sixth grade class comes in in September and they start harvesting the pumpkins. They actually sell them to all the parents, and then that's a way of they as a giveaway to the school as their graduation. So there are some that run, you know, do something over the summer. And like I said too, if they have fruit trees, some of them, you know, farm them out to parents to take care of them, or have parents that come in and take care of them over the summer. So you have to do something special over the summer here, unless you're, you know, a year-round school.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, that that's I guess that's intriguing, and I guess to raise money. And I guess if you're a principal and you really want to raise a lot of money, take your playground out and fill it with avocado trees, and you could you could make your budget up there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, too much water. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So composting and vermiculture, do schools add this component to their garden and is this difficult to do?
SPEAKER_02Um, a lot of schools do have compost facilities because what uh uh an interesting, if they have a good garden in the high school, it's even more because they're learning environ a lot of environmental stuff and not wasting. But um, when kids learn about decomposers and things like that in science, um, there's also things that because when you learn about composting, you're learning about hot different things and how hot a compost pile can get. So they're there's doing a lot of math. They they keep track of um uh how geeky this can be, is they measure the temperature and they see the high temperature, the low, the median, the average temperature, you know, all sorts of things that you can relate to a math class or a science class. So, yes, composting is done in a lot of schools. Some of the vermiculture will be done inside the classrooms because you can keep warm bins in a classroom, it's much easier, and you can take care of them. They're totally safe, they're not gonna go crawling all around. So you do see composting, it's where they have a lot more room. And most of them want to have a place that they don't have that they know what to do with the waste from the garden. And so they they learn what can go in a compost bin so they have a place that, you know, they can then put back fresh um nutrients back into the soil. So yeah, there's composting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the vermiculture would be a good idea because I know you can't have worms get too hot. So keeping it in the classroom might be very workable.
SPEAKER_02Nobody could take it home over the summer. You can't take a compost bin home. But you can think that worms home.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what a fun. I'm sure that would be fun for a student to get to take the class's worms home and play with them and all that stuff. So let's talk about getting started. We've talked about a planning process, and so now you're ready to get started. And if I'm a teacher, an administrator, a parent, or a grandparent, how do I get a garden started at my school? Are there some good steps to start with?
SPEAKER_02Well, a little self-serving, but what I would recommend is to go to another school that has one and ask them what worked for them and what didn't. We have um facilities here at the research station that uh we host schools, administration. We just had a school from Mission Viejo, and about eight teachers come up and spend a couple hours in our youth demo garden, and we'll take them through the all the things we talked about. What to plant, where to pick the site, how to work the irrigation, what materials to use, uh, what type of plants to so a lot of that you you do your homework ahead of time, go to a site, see what it has. Um on our website, the Master Gardener website, there's a place at the bottom of the page that has a it says if you want to consult. And so here's an interesting thing. Master Gardeners don't go to people's homes to help them if they have a gardening question. You can send a question in a website and we'll answer it. Master Gardeners will do on-site visits to schools.
SPEAKER_01Good to know.
SPEAKER_02It's the well, the one thing um we're every master gardener gets fingerprinted, so we have background checks that we're safe. And uh a school's a safe environment, so we do on-site consults. So I I just did one the other day. Uh school of Mishviejo wanted somebody to come out and help them. Uh, they they have a garden, they want had a lot of questions uh to set up the appointment. I met the principal, he took me out. There were four or five teachers there, and um, they, you know, for an hour, they just asked me questions. I answered stuff. It's like, don't plant this here, you know, you should this tree doesn't look so good, you should, you know, do that, this and that. So we'll actually come out and help them plan. We've gone to schools that didn't have a garden at all. A school in Costa Mesa wanted to. And uh uh there were two of us that went out and they were thinking of putting it on the asphalt. We talked them out of it, put them someplace else, and now they have a huge flourishing program. So we'll help them pick the site and then uh help them to think about all the things they need to plan in terms of what type of program, what kind of beds, how many beds to start, what to plant in it, um, and all of that stuff. So if any school uh uh wants to start a thing, what I would do is ask for a consult. They're free. We come out, and uh a master gardener that knows how to work with kids in a garden and the things you want to think about, kids versus adults, because the tools you work with, the sizes of the beds are all different than you'd have with adults working in a garden, is that we'll come out and spend some time with you. A lot of the Master Gardeners will help the school for the first year, um, answer questions, email back and forth, and then they'll go on and um you know they can take it on their own from then on.
SPEAKER_01Wow. So that is a great so that's a resource that people have to realize.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01The money, I know there's some upfront costs, especially if you're a school without a garden. So are there grants available? Do you have any ideas on funding?
SPEAKER_02There's thousands. There's thousands of grants. Whole Foods has them, kids gardening has them, there's a lot of lows and Home Depot, the box stores have money that that they or discounts that they could do it. On our website and that CSGN website, there's a lot of places that you can find that has different have different grants. There's a a group, California, it's for agriculture in the classroom. They have a you can go to their websites and it'll show you all the available grants and the deadlines and what information you have to fill in. I mean, they're constantly going on. They're not big, you know, $250, $500. And a lot of times that's just enough to get started in the garden. There's all sorts of ways, you know, you can go from there, but yeah, there's hundreds of them.
SPEAKER_01So you can search them out and can't. I I would imagine can you get more than one grant, or have you heard of a school?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, yeah, and and usually like whole Whole Foods, I uh they call it Whole Kids, they they might give a thousand hundred dollar grants, you know, to schools. So that you know, schools are getting uh, you know, money from all different locations. There's there are some bigger ones that you can go for, like 20,000, and that pays for a part-time teacher or somebody one day a week to come in the garden. But the the little ones to get started are easier to to win or to get. And it's all online.
SPEAKER_01So you wouldn't need to be too much of an expert, although a lot of school districts I know have grant writer and grant writer consultants that you could that you could uh take advantage of. So let's spend a little bit of time talking about the South Coast Research and Extension Center's Youth Garden. Now, if you haven't been here, the South Coast Research and Extension Center is located at 7601 Irvine Boulevard in Irvine. And it has this youth garden that's awesome. And please uh share some information about the youth garden, how to bring a group out, when it's open to the public, and anything you can tell us about that would be would be a great thing for us to know and talk about.
SPEAKER_02So normally the research station, the South Coast region, is not open to the public at any time. At least not the the youth garden. You have to make an appointment. Um, there's a lot of scientists that work here that are doing agricultural research, um, and so they don't want to have people just mow you know around. Now, a couple times a year they do open it to the public and it's advertised so that you can come in and you can walk through, and we staff the garden with the youth garden area with people that are knowledgeable in it. Um, but the other thing that we do in addition to the consults is that if a school wants to bring some teachers out, or If a school wants to bring a bunch of their children out for a site visit, or a Girl Scout troop wants to come out and help their Girl Scouts earn a badge, or a Boy Scout troop wants to earn a badge. We've had Boys and Girls Scouts. So any kind of group that wants to take kids or adults to learn about gardening with children, there is a form or there's a number they can call to schedule an appointment. It's either on the South Coast site, and I think we have it on our site too, that they can schedule an appointment to bring a group out and spend an hour or two in the youth garden. And there, when you go into the garden, it'll give you samples of different types of beds. So some made with bricks, some made with, you know, the plasticized trex type wood, some made of regular wood. You'll see regular fruit trees, you'll see aspiate fruit trees. So we have a mixture of all different gardening techniques. We have lots of things in pot plant uh potted plants, containers, um, so that they can see all the different things and ideas for how to of things that you can garden with kids. We have a one of the our containers is a container view box. So one side of the box is clear plastic and it has a sliding um cover over it so that you could grow, say, carrots in there, and you plant the seeds right near the side, and then the kids could actually look and see the carrots growing underground.
SPEAKER_01Fascinating.
SPEAKER_02So that so that's some of the things that so if they can make an appointment to come out and visit here, and we'll have staff it with one of our volunteers that knows all about to help you do the planning. Or if you're stuck and you want to revive the garden, to revive your garden, come out and spend the day, or not the day, but a couple hours with us, and we'll we'll give you, we'll do the brain dump of all the ideas that we have of working with kids in gardens.
SPEAKER_01So you could do it either with a group of school kids or you could bring out and do like a teacher in-service or workshop here.
SPEAKER_02Yes. We actually had um a school district up in Huntington Beach that brought 12 of their pre-K teachers here. Um and it was on an in-service day that they came for four hours, and they came, you know, at the afternoon of their and in-service with their principal, uh, of one of the principals of the school district, and we just spent the whole time on what to do with the pre-K pre-K kits. Pre-K, yeah. So w all the things and what kind of gardens, what they should plant, ideas, activities to do with them, and you know, what kind of materials, how to build the bed specifically for that eight grade level. So, yeah, any type of in-service could be had. We could do it on a Saturday. You know, so we have lots of options to meet your schedule, even if it was like two hours after school one day.
SPEAKER_01So it it it can be done, and and this is an awesome resource, and probably, in my opinion, where someone would start.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01And I know next door to the youth garden is also composting. So do you can you tell us a little bit about the composting training and things that go on in there?
SPEAKER_02Um, I don't know all the details of it, but they do have we collect a lot of the waste from the research station here, and we bring all the compost, and we actually have compost going in different stages of being cooked and ready to go. And so we'll have when the research station is open for the public, we'll have classes here. And then they they do offer other um types of classes that you can sign up for and learn about composting and you know what kind of bins were they have lots of different samples of bins, they do have a worm bin, so little vermicultures here, so that next to that, you know, you can learn a little bit about composting while you're in the youth garden too, or vice versa.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because I know a big thing within Orange County is to uh keep our landfills open and not putting green waste in there. And I know schools have taken an active role in reducing their green waste by composting, which is a great way to learn that. And so students could actually see that temperature changes in the compost piles here, or teachers, because it's not that hard to do if you're if you're willing to do it. So, again, that's the South Coast Research and Extension Center at 7601 Irvine Boulevard in Irvine. And that's at the UCANR website where you can find information. You can call or you can uh you can email and someone will get back to you. So homeschools, do you have any homeschoolers you work with?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, as a matter of fact, that's another group of, you know, if you're they there are homeschoolers usually are connected with other homeschoolers and they're always looking for activities. So this is one of the things that will bring a toll group of homeschoolers with their parents and they'll come and spend some time in the garden, and the kids will do some lessons with them. So we'll we'll help them out and we'll work, you know, with the ages and stuff of that ahead of time. But um, yeah, the homeschoolers is another group that could come out and spend, you know, a couple hours in the garden to learn a little bit about it, or to think about how they would put a garden in maybe their house that their the parent then teaches the kids, you know, some of the academics, but it's in their own home garden.
SPEAKER_01And I guess if there were a homeschooling parent that had the space at their own house, they could set up a school garden in a sense for their homeschool community. Do you know of any of anybody that's had success with that?
SPEAKER_02Uh no, I don't.
SPEAKER_01But that's an idea. And so Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts certainly too, because there's a lot of community service that can go with that. And even if a Boy Scout troop or a Girl Scout troop isn't going to grow a garden, they might want to experiment with composting. Yep. And this would be the place to learn about it. Yep. So do you have any additional tips or words of wisdom on school gardening that you could share with us before we're done today?
SPEAKER_02Um, I would think that uh if you were going to start a garden with a school and working, think about what would make, you know, keep kids engaged. So don't make a lot of lecture and talking, but let them do things. And the other thing that I there I have a lot of schools that they grow, say, peas, and they're so excited, they just look at the peas. I'm like, eat them. Harvest your food, you know. You could start picking lettuce when it's you know, it's got 10 leaves on it. You don't have to wait till it's a full head of lettuce. Uh, eat the food every day. When I was working with a school um down in South County, a bunch of kindergartners. The first thing that they would ask every day, I showed up, are we eating today? Because they got so used to every one, I was going there once a week, every week they would eat something out of the garden. And there was a child there, a little boy, that his the volunteer said he never eats green things, his mother said. It's like, okay. And um, I have a a uh deal with the kids. There's a thing called a no thank you bite. And so you're allowed, if you I give you a sugar snap pea, you take a bite, and if you don't like it, you can spit it right out on the ground. That's a no thank you bite. Like, I don't like this, no thank you. And it's like it'll go into compost, it's okay. And um, this little boy, a little peer pressure, he decided he would try this sugar snap pea. He took a bite and his eyes lit up and he goes, It tastes like candy. Can I have another one? And the the parent almost fell on the ground, like couldn't believe that their child, this child was eating green vegetables. But I think that uh the wisdom is don't look at the food. Let the kids eat it as much as they can. Because what we're seeing is that more and more a lot of the funding, and I should jump back to that, a lot of the funding's coming from nutrition organizations. The American Heart Association was giving money. I got, you know, there were the Orange County Department of Education is trying to think get kids to eat better, and what better way to teach them about nutritional things and good stuff is stuff they grew themselves because if they grow it, they'll eat it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that sounds good. And it sounds like you're just eating things raw as you pick them.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So you're getting the exact flavor of the plant. And a lot of us forget that raw food is not only good for you, but it tastes very good. Exactly. This has been a wonderful opportunity, and I hope that this motivates a lot of our listeners to get into school gardens to see what can be done. And if you don't have a school that's interested, a co-op, a club, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, there are so many opportunities here. This is in the garden, and we've been talking about school gardens with our guest, Joanne Bird. Thank you, Joanne, for joining us today and sharing all of your knowledge.