Each month GardenABCs features a garden program or project that's making a difference with students and the community. We're honored to share these stories and hope they inspire you to get gardening with children! Read Success Story:
Harvesting at Woodland Elementary West...
and the Mystery Squash
Harvest is in full swing at Woodland Elementary West School in Gages Lake, Ill. Volunteers recently picked 60 pounds of cucumbers, alone!
Green beans, summer squash, cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, herbs and much more are donated weekly to the Warren Township Food Pantry located nearby. Over the past three years, students have donated more than 1,400 pounds of produce to those in need.
Children and their parents help water, weed and harvest the garden during summer months. When students return to school in late summer, they'll tour the garden they helped plant and pick vegetables to taste, bring home and donate. Tasting herbs like mint, lemon basil, oregano and chives always is a popular event. And through positive peer pressure, some children will try certain vegetables, like cherry tomatoes, for the first time.
The project brings together the community, complements science curriculum, highlights healthy eating habits, and offers hands-on lessons in team work, citizenship, respect, perseverance, initiative and responsibility -- core values emphasized at the school. Students also learn they can change their community.
The garden is the inspiration behind Our Generous Garden (Nuestra Huerta Generosa), the nationally acclaimed children's book noted by Maria Shriver, Martha Stewart Living Radio, Connecticut Public Radio, Florida's Surgeon General, and more. (Read reviews.)
Mystery Squash
Anyone who's planted a garden with children knows the process can become a bit, well, hectic. Multiply that by 400 students and you'll understand how volunteers at the Woodland Elementary West garden lost a few seed packets.
Here's the problem: Students at Woodland are growing a 'mystery' squash and volunteers have no packets to help identify it or determine when it's ready to harvest. Internet searches and emails to local Master Gardeners turned up nothing.
Here are the details: It's a hard-shell variety with a fluted or scalloped edge near the stem. It's dark green with yellow / orange splotches (similar to an Acorn squash). It's more disk-shaped and about 7 inches wide. It grows on a bush-style plant, not vine. It looks like a thick-skinned patty-pan squash on steroids.
If you know what kind of squash this is, when to pick it, or suggested recipes, please contact Anne Nagro! Thanks much in advance.
Learn more about the Woodland Elementary West Harvest Garden!
View other garden projects we've featured on GardenABCs.
Tell us about your school or community garden project so we can share it with others!
This past year, GardenABCs featured some awesome school garden projects. In fact, they're so inspiring we've listed them here so you can review them whenever you like. Garden organizers - thank you for sharing your knowledge and passion with us! Tell us about your garden project and we'll feature it on GardenABCs. Got broadband? Let us know how you're using technology in the garden.
After-School Gardens
City Blossoms Washington DC
Children & youth, entrepreneurship, hands-on learning, art, community, healthy living skills
Gary Comer Youth Center Rooftop Garden Chicago
Youth, community, rooftop, season-extending techniques, healthy eating
Butterfly & Bird Habitats
The School 5 Learning Garden with City Green Paterson NJ
Third grade, learning lab, integrated curricula, also incorporates vegetable patches
Woodland Primary Butterfly Garden Gages Lake, Ill.
Students, seeds, flowers, butterfly life cycle, integrated curricula, hands-on
Community Gardens
Common Ground Community Garden Univ. of
Lake County Health Department WIC Garden Waukegan, Ill.
Nutrition education, mothers and children, vegetables, farmers' market
Troostwood Garden Kansas City, Mo.
Youth, vegetables, healthy eating, market / entrepreneurship
WE Garden in Capital Park Sacramento, Calif
State capital demonstration garden, community, students, edible, lessons in nutrition, academics, healthy living
Container Gardens
Interlachen Elementary Cafeteria Garden + More Interlachen, Fla
Multiple examples of container gardens. Elementary and high school students, science, curriculum, food production, healthy eating, science exploration
Cultural Gardens
Organic School Project Multiple locations - Chicago
Culture and history-based gardens, healthy eating, food sources, multiple disciplines
Discovery Gardens
Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Children Garden Brooklyn, NY
Planting, weeding, harvesting, tasting, and exploring the garden ecosystem, PreK and caregivers
Wee Gardeners Nature Workshop & Legacy Demo Garden Greensboro, N.C., Early childhood, hands-on, sensory, exploration, multiple intelligences
Environmental Education / Green Gardens
Patuxet Elementary Upper Marlboro, Md.
Outdoor classrooms, schoolyard and habitat improvement, community-building
Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School Washington DC
Garden-based academics and watershed education, student mentoring, business model for garden sustainability, healthy eating, developed in partnership with Earth Day Network
Mentoring Gardens
Gardening Together Habitat for Humanity Lake County, Ill.
Homeowners, landscaping, vegetables, community-building
Outdoor Classrooms
Alice Fong Yu Alternative School San Francisco
Pond garden, composting, raised vegetable beds, elementary students, environmental stewardship, California science, math & environmental standards
Atwood Elementary School Macomb, Mich.
Theme-based gardening, Wildlife Habitat, Michigan Junior Master Gardener Program, Feed the Hungry, Native Gardening and environmental sustainability, composting and vermicomposting.
CitySprouts Cambridge, Mass.
Helps school communitities create schoolyard learning gardens and teachers use these gardens by supporting core curriculum.
Julien Elementary School Garden Turlock, Calif.
K-6, multi-curricular, healthy eating, fruits and vegetables, native plants, insects, vermiculture, science experiments
Rainwater / Stormwater Gardens
The Buhr Park Children's Wet Meadow Project Ann Arbor, Mich.
These wet meadow ecosystems provide a habitat for native plants and animals, an attractive educational site for children, neighbors and other visitors, and an environmental filter for stormwater runoff from the park grounds.
Gregory Elementary School Rainwater Garden Wilmington, N.C.
Students, stormwater run-off, pollution control, environmental education
School Ground Improvement
The Schoolyard Greening Project - Brent Elementary, Washington, D.C.
Safety, learning, health, environment, gardens, asphalt graphics, library development
Various Projects
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Projects
Vegetable / Edible Gardens
Borton Primary Magnet School Community Garden Tucson
Nutrition education, farmstand, chickens / eggs, tastings
The Dawes School Garden of Eatin' Evanston, Ill. Website
Slow Food in the School Project, healthy eating, preparing food
Dorset Cereals Edible Playgrounds Winner - 2008 RHS Chelsea Garden Show, Children, community, school yards, healthy eating, food production
Common Ground School Garden University of
From the Group Up in the Community Garden at the Children of Mine Center Washington DC
Nutrition education, eating what you grow, gardening basics, art in the garden, life skills
Learning Gate Community School Lutz, Fla.
Seed to Soup organic fruit and vegetable garden, raised beds, beneficial insect garden, compost yard, chickens, spiraling curriculum
North Junior High Garden-to-Plate Class Boise, Idaho
Eating what you grow, nutrition education, math and science lessons, junior high students
Organic School Project Multiple locations - Chicago
Healthy eating, food sources, gardens based on culture and history, multiple disciplines
SEED School Good Food Garden Washington DC
Healthy eating, 7th grade curricula, community education
St. Francis School Garden Goshen, Ky
Nutrition, lifecycles, germination, greenhouse, learning where food comes from, environmental stewardship, grades K-8
The Ivy School Garden Portland, Ore.
Healthy eating, learning how to grow food, cooking classes and tastings, creativity with recipes
Urban Sprouts School Garden Programs Multiple locations, San Francisco
Middle and high schools students, under-served neighborhoods, nutrition and health, academic achievement, ecoliteracy
Woodland Elementary West Harvest Garden Gages Lake, Ill.
Students, vegetables, charitable giving / food bank
Urban Farms
Earthworks Urban Farm Detroit
Learning food's origin, social justice, helping others, farm markets, summer programs
Green Youth Farm Chicagoland Also visit this link
Vegetables, market / entrepreneurship, team-building
