I harvested my broccoli last week, and boy was it delicious!
Pocket: Mini Wally in Chocolate
Compost: Malibu Compost Tea
Vegetable: Broccoli (full sun, 6-8 hours/day)
Recipe: Roasted Broccoli and Cauliflower with Lemon and Garlic (found here)
Photos by Shauna Nep
xox
Shauna
Woolly School Garden Coordinator
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Woolly School Garden: Chinese American International School, Pre-K & K Campus(San Francisco, CA)
Garden Coordinator: Vonceil Yara
Where does your garden hang? South facing wall in our school courtyard.
Do you have a drip line installed? Or do you hand water? We hand water every day!
Your Hardiness Zone: 8B
Your pockets are so colorful! What are you growing right now? We are growing… Flowering cabbage, Swiss chard, Rocket arugula, Sweet peas, Broccoli, Curly kale, Dino kale, Purple kale, Red beets, Mint, Organic lettuces- Butter, red, boston etc, Pansies, Violas, Bokchoy
Thanks, Vonceil!
Proposal Image via GrowtoLearn
All other images courtesy of Woolly School Garden
7 Easy Steps to Starting an Outdoor Classroom at your school!
I speak to teachers every day who worry about their students suffering from obesity and diabetes due to poor nutrition- the need to educate youth about health and nutrition is more important than ever. Children who are hungry or poorly nourished do less well in school, both academically and behaviorally. Numerous studies demonstrate that school-based garden and nutrition education programs positively impact the adoption of healthy eating habits; children are more likely to try new fruits and vegetables if they grow them themselves!
Most schools in the U.S. do not have gardens or nutrition education as part of the curriculum. Many would like to build a garden but don’t have the resources or space. There is so much red tape around starting a school garden that it can seem daunting to get started! Well forget the red tape… Here are 7 easy steps to starting an outdoor garden classroom, no matter your size or budget!
1) Create a garden proposal
Present a proposal to the principal or administration. A proposal will also help you think through all aspects of planning for your garden and identify what kind of support and resources you will need in order to fund, build, and maintain your garden. See this guide and template via School Garden Wizard.
2) Fundraise for your school garden
Community Fundraising
Fundraising for your garden is an important part of the process. Asking your community to give or raise money is a way to garner interest and instill a sense of ownership in the garden.
Garden Grants
There are also plenty of garden grants available. For a full list of garden grant directories, see www.woollyschoolgarden.org/fundraising-kit
Online Fundraising
To raise money for your garden using effective online tools and social media, try www.woollyschoolgarden.org or www.donorschoose.org
3) Build your school garden
Raised beds
Raised beds are great if you have the space. They are usually at least 12 inches deep. When choosing a length and a width, keep in mind that students will have to reach across the width of the bed to water, harvest, and weed the garden.
Tire gardens
Why not grow some non-edible beautiful flowers, or start a butterfly garden using donated tires? Tire gardens can be painted up to become living art! But careful- there are concerns over chemicals from the tires leeching into soil… so non-edibles only! Check out this how-to.
Grow vertically!
Vertical edible gardens don’t require you to give up any space and allow access for all individuals, including children with disability conditions. Vertical gardens work great for any school, with or without land. Woolly School Gardens use any sunny wall or fence to create a vertical edible garden. You don’t even need a drill for a fence, just a few zip-ties!
*Tire Garden Photo courtesy of Mark Twain Elementary
4) Integrate your garden in to your classroom using lessons
The key to making your school garden a successful part of your school is to integrate garden curriculum into the classroom. Learning truly comes alive in a school garden. From math to science, reading to nutrition, almost any topic can be taught in a garden! There are a number of online resources for school garden curriculum.
5) Maintain and monitor your school garden
While building, planting and harvesting are important, daily maintenance and studying incremental growth is just as important. Plants need water on a regular basis, so create a watering schedule. Soil should be checked to make sure it’s retaining the right amount of moisture. Instead of expensive built in irrigation, consider running a hose with a timer! A garden only thrives if it’s being properly cared for, and don’t forget weekends and holidays!
For even more maintenance how-to’s, check out Grow to Learn.
6) Watch your garden grow
Take photos!
7) … & Enjoy!
The best way to enjoy the fresh produce from your garden is to…. eat it! That’s right! Integrate cooking/meal preparation in to the classroom (for ideas check out the Kitchen Kid, the culinary program at Santee Ed Complex, or RootDownLA!), and this is a crucial part of an edible schoolyard program. Eating the fresh produce will help kids make the connection from farm to table, from garden to tummy! And plus, kids who grow veggies, EAT veggies!
Do you have more ideas or nifty tips? Let us know in the comments! 
Plastics Make it Possible® sponsors 10 schools!
Wow! We are so grateful for our wonderful partners, Plastics Make it Possible®.
Plastics Make it Possible® is providing 10 schools with everything they need to start their own edible schoolyard, with Woolly School Gardens! These schools will receive 50 Woolly Pockets, organic premium soil, edible seeds, a garden manual, and our K-8 nutrition & gardening curriculum written by GrowingGreat.
Congratulations to the winning schools:
Be sure to check back regularly for updates on the progress of these gardens. And for tips to get your kids recycling more of their everyday plastics, check out the Plastics Make it Possible website, here.
I was reading a post over on Jeff McIntire-Strasburg’s blog Sustainablog called The 5 Best Cities for Urban Gardening. I encourage you to check it out because he does a great job at outlining the different cities and why they scream, “SUSTAINABLE!”
However, I took something else out of the blog post. In the third paragraph Jeff states:
“One way large cities are becoming green is through urban gardening. Community gardens help bring communities together. They do this by producing food specifically for those in need, hosting youth programs, and reducing crime rates.”
Urban gardening is more than fresh and organic veggies. It is more than sustainability and creating life in urban decay. It is fully about community development.
One of my favorite authors is Malcolm Gladwell. In “The Power of Context” and later “The Tipping Point”, Malcolm poses a theory to explain the phenomenon that occurred when the sudden period of intense cleaning and maintenance of New York City was able to slash crime.
It is extremely important to realize that an individual’s environment makes a huge impact to their well-being. An urban garden brings the community together and creates a beautiful landscape of life. That life helps curb turbulent tendencies in neighborhoods where hope is a luxury.
At Woolly Pocket, we encourage all people to investigate and build a sustainable future for our neighborhoods, schools, and communities.
We had a great time at the Good Food Festival. in Santa Monica. We met some incredible folks- Nona from the Whole Kids Foundation, the great guys from Chipotle, our incredible partners Growing Great, and the always inspiring Mud Baron. We also heard the stories of fantastic model school gardens from all over Los Angeles. Thanks to everyone who came out to the Rose Garden to learn about vertical gardening, and the woolly school garden program! And a big thank you to the Good Food Festival volunteers for helping us woollify the school garden with beautiful veggies and herbs!
The organizing committee of the Good Food Festival & Conference has put together five days of STELLAR events as part of the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market.
Stop by this weekend at the Rose Garden from 10am – 5pm to meet our very own Woolly School Garden extraodinaire, Shauna Nep to learn about vertical gardening with kids. We’ll have our new Mini Wally and children’s book for you to check out. There will also be a street fair with good food, local tops chefs, and wonderful workshops on cooking and growing your own food. We’d love to see y’all there. It’s gonna be a GOOD weekend!
Good Food Festival & Conference @ Santa Monica High School
601 Pico Boulevard
Santa Monica, California 90405
Yippee! We love hearing what our very inspiring garden representatives are up to. We are constantly amazed by all the different ways teachers use their garden for all sorts of subjects! Thanks Paige for updating us on what the Waldorf School of Pittsburgh Fifth Grade class is up to, and how you’re using your Woolly School Garden:
“Last Spring we used a whole variety of seeds and tried everything from flowers to vegetables, from upright plants to trailing plants and large things to small. We wanted to see all the different varieties of plants. By the time we said goodbye for the summer in mid June, we were sampling arugula and nasturium leaves and watching the various seedlings develop.
This Fall, my students returned to school eager to see what our Woolly School Garden had grown. We found that a wide range of seeds had grown and are now in various states of their life cycle, perfect for our Botany studies. Some still are producing flowers and fruits, some have gone full circle and are setting seeds. As we study each stage in the metamorphosis of plants, we are able to use our Woolly Garden to provide real life examples of that stage to observe and draw. The Woolly School Garden will be passed to the rising Grade Five class in the spring so that it can continue to provide wonderful Botany studies year after year.”
We are so happy that you are loving your garden, Paige! Thank you for sharing your story with us!
To learn more about the Woolly School Garden Program, please check out www.woollyschoolgarden.org or email us at schools@woollypocket.com
xx
Shauna
Woolly School Garden Coordinator
Wow! Are we ever grateful today. Despite the rainy weather, our friends at Whole Foods Callowhill raised $5000 for the Woolly School Garden Program! That’s 5 schools in Philadelphia that will have a beautiful outdoor classroom, and will start learning gardening + nutrition! What a great way to kick off the school year. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
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