Gateway Michael Elementary has always had a school garden but in recent years, it has taken on more importance. Edward Scruggs, Oliver Tindle, and Rosemarie Schelling are three teachers that have been vital in the success of the school garden.

When Edward Scruggs started at Gateway in 2000, the school had a small garden that was mostly led by teachers and PTA members.  Over time, those responsible for the garden retired and weed overtook many of the beds. In the spring of 2013, Edward Scruggs decided to bring the garden back to life. With the help of a group of volunteers, he spent the next few months digging out the weeds, planting new crops, and – because there was no irrigation system – hand-watering the entire garden himself.

He soon recruited Rosemarie Schelling and Oliver Tindle to help with garden maintenance, since they were both avid home gardeners. Rosemarie Schelling had started garden beds at Gateway Michael over 20 years ago and was eager to start the garden back up.  Mr. Tindle describes the revitalization of the garden as a “catalyst for change” and it brought new energy to the school. The garden inspired the entire staff to start a faculty exercise program to encourage each other to stay active. This enthusiasm spread throughout the building and in 2018, Gateway Michael received the Silver Award for America’s Healthiest Schools! President Bill Clinton praised Gateway Elementary and Gateway Michael as “one of the healthiest schools I have ever seen,” during his visit to the school in 2017.

Gateway Michael is a unique St. Louis Public School that serves students with severe deficits in cognitive, motor, and speech areas. In 2017, Healthy Schools, Healthy Communities (HSHC), an initiative funded by the Missouri Foundation for Health, helped make the garden space more accessible for students. They installed double-high raised beds and a wheelchair accessible pathway around many of the garden beds.

Scruggs, Tindle, and Schelling have found ways to incorporate the garden into special education, like having the students use hand shovels to move soil and directly observing weather patterns. In addition to being an outdoor classroom, Oliver Tindle says “The garden provides peace of mind and physical expression for the staff and students.”   The garden allows the students to feel responsible for something while being supported in a safe space. Rosemarie Schelling proudly shares that during a MAP test this past winter, one of her students was able to make a connection to something they had learned while being in the garden.

When asked about the garden, Edward Scruggs enjoys telling the story of giving a group of students a packet of cucumber seeds. One student was so excited because he knew pickles came from cucumbers from his time in the garden. Though he no longer has to hand water the garden, Edward Scruggs often spends hours working in the garden each afternoon. His initial goal “to make the garden look good” has grown into something much more. Scruggs wants to continue expanding the garden and dreams about growing enough for parents and community members to take the produce home. 

By Rachel Wilson, Education Americorps VISTA

Albert Sanders teaches preschool and the Saturday morning classes at Adams Elementary. In partnership with Connie Myers, from Washington University, Albert leads the school garden, Sun Patch Garden at Adams. This past summer, Albert was selected as one of the Missouri Regional Teachers of the Year for 2018-2019. They work with the students, volunteers, and community to create a space that everyone enjoys, utilizes, and are proud to be a part of.

The Sun Patch Garden has a variety of annual and perennial vegetable, flower, and fruit beds. The Saturday School at Adams – led by Albert and Connie – includes “Rooted in STEM” classes, where students are able to make scientific connections to the garden. This past spring, the students built a geodesic dome greenhouse to start seedlings. The greenhouse looks like a much smaller version of the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Climatron!  The greenhouse extends the growing season into the winter, so they can grow more produce for the school and community.  

In addition to Saturday School lessons, the garden is used as an outdoor classroom by Albert and other teachers at Adam’s Elementary.  Albert’s preschoolers help out with the planting and celebrated Halloween with a Pumpkin Patch Hunt (check out the garden’s Facebook page to see the adorable photos!). Throughout the year, Adam’s teachers have access to produce from a tower garden and are encouraged to incorporate it into the classroom.  Parents of Adam’s Elementary students are also welcome to the produce.

With the help of Adam’s teachers and a team of Washington University volunteers (and of course, Albert and Connie), the Sun Patch Garden is maintained throughout the summer and school year. They hold monthly work days on Saturdays (even in the winter!) that are open to the public and gardeners of all levels. They recently set up a rain barrel irrigation system to make summer maintenance easier – Albert shared how to install a rain barrel irrigation at the Gateway Greening Community Agriculture Conference this past February!

Albert’s favorite memory in the garden is the first harvest of lettuce with the Rooted in STEM students. They grew lettuce, carrots, and radishes and had a salad party!  Connie enjoys seeing the students’ smiles and a sense of accomplishment as plants grow and are harvested throughout the year.  Connie says, “It inspires me to see the students share what they have learned with other students and proudly show their friends and parents, explaining in great detail what they have done in the garden.”

Albert and Connie’s collaboration and teamwork is undoubtedly a huge part of their success. Both are passionate about working with the students in the garden and making an impact in their community. They do acknowledge the need for “support from the administration and staff, and for them to believe in the importance of the school garden.” Perhaps, what the Sun Patch Garden can teach other school gardeners is that in order to have a thriving garden, the most important thing you need is a strong foundation!

To learn more about Albert, Connie, and what’s happening at the Sun Patch Garden, visit their website or Facebook page!

I recently read Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been combing through the book and blown away at all of the topics included. Each topic is centered around people of color, their contributions to agriculture, and the history of systemic discrimination in American agriculture.

The author, Leah Penniman, is the founder of Soul Fire Farm in New York. Her goal for the book was to create a manual “for African-heritage people ready to ready reclaim our rightful place of dignified agency in the food system”. Farming While Black also details her experiences as a farmer/activist, and how people with zero experience in gardening and farming can find real power and dignity through food. This comprehensive piece highlights topics including finding land and resources, restoring degraded land, healing from historical trauma, youth programming practices, and tangible ways for white people to build equitable authentic relationships with people of color and institutions/organizations led by people of color.

One of my favorite quotes can be found in the introduction and sets the tone for the book. “To farm while Black is an act of defiance against white supremacy and a means to honor the agricultural ingenuity of our ancestors.” To me, this quote highlights the importance of acknowledging not just the legacy of slavery and plunder of black and brown people in America, but the innovation, perseverance, contributions by people of color that helped advance American agriculture and our food systems.  

Simon Amies, Pattonville School District Webmaster and leads the youth garden at the Pattonville School District’s Learning Center. 

After joining the Pattonville School District team, Simon Amies, an avid gardener with vegetable, berry, and herb gardens at home, noticed the absence of community and school gardens in the northwest area of Saint Louis County.  He approached the district with the idea of putting in a youth garden at the district Learning Center.  They not only approved the project, the district supported it with the installation of a sturdy perimeter fence, irrigation infrastructure, and a tiller that the district owned but had been gathering dust in a garage. Gateway Greening donated compost and trellises, and Simon’s Pattonville co-workers helped till the garden its first year.

The Pattonville District Garden is a great example of community members coming together for a common goal.  Since its creation, the garden has developed strategies for engaging people throughout the Pattonville community. The district, community, Chartwell’s food services, and Gateway Greening continue to play a large role in the success of the garden. In previous years, the garden has hosted annual seed swaps, seedling sales, gardening classes for community members, and community garden tours. The produce from the garden is used in school lunches, and Chartwell’s has conducted a series of veggie tastings with the students.  Kohlrabi went from being an unheard of vegetable to one of the kids’ favorites – especially if it’s dipped in ranch dressing! Even the local Starbucks donates coffee grounds each day.

In the district, Simon’s main “thing” is technology, and he enjoys teaching the connection between science, technology, and gardening.  He uses problem-based learning to provide students opportunities to use science to tackle an obstacle in the garden.  For example, one class used a raspberry pi computer to create a web-based sprinkler application for the garden that uses weather forecasts and past rainfall data to adjust watering schedules.  The application also allows the garden to be watered from any location. Pretty cool!  Having tangible results, like seeing the garden being watered by a system they created, inspired students.

Simon thinks of his role as being the “seasonal clock” for the gardens, facilitating the correct timing for various garden tasks, and empowering the faculty and students to get involved.   Teaching the kids that putting in a little bit of work in the garden early in the year can lead to big rewards come harvest time. When asked what his secret to success was, Simon replied that “There are fun things to do in the garden, but there are also not-so-fun things to do. By creating automated systems (like the sprinkler app) for those not-so-fun things, more time can be spend doing the ‘fun stuff’.”  

Simon wants to increase gardening across the district and make it easier for other teachers to incorporate the garden into their classroom. 

A new, exciting project at the Pattonville Learning Center is the installation of a large, glass-fronted refrigerator near the front desk.  During the growing season it will be stocked with excess garden produce to distribution to school families in need and to encourage healthy eating in the district.

Simon’s advice to other school gardeners: You need support! Ideally on an institutional level, but support from anywhere you can find it is extremely beneficial. Build relationships with people and find ways to work with people on their level.

Simon will be sharing his wisdom and strategies he’s used at the Pattonville Youth Garden at our Community Agriculture Conference in his session called “Youth Garden School Integration & Maintenance Strategies.”

Kerry leads the Agriscience component for the Saint Louis Science Center’s Youth Exploring Science Program.  

The Youth Exploring Science (YES) Program is a work-based youth development program that uses science investigation to foster academic and professional skills.  The Agriscience component focuses on increasing the teens’ knowledge of plants, comfort with nature, and healthy eating habits.

Kerry originally joined the YES Program as part of a Climate Change grant, educating the teens’ on global warming.  When the grant ended, she took over the Agriscience component of the YES program. Though Kerry studied Biology in undergrad, she never took a botany class and had very little gardening experience.  But she loves being in nature and was inspired when she realized that the teens had little exposure to nature in their everyday lives.  Kerry recalled that during a gardening lesson with the teens, she pulled a persimmon from a tree and when she took a bite, the students were shocked that it was okay to eat fruit right off a tree.  

The garden is a large part of the Agriscience classroom and incorporates outdoor education into their indoor curriculum.  Teens have access to microscopes to observe plant cells and are able to interact with worms, salamanders, crickets that live in the classroom.  The teens use the gene editing technique CRISPR and raspberry pi computers in connection with the garden for their advanced science curriculum. For one project, in collaboration with the Danforth Center, the teens are using raspberry pi computing to create a “vegetable piano”.  Using vegetables from their garden, sensors are transmitted from the vegetable “keys” to activate sounds as if playing a piano. The teens are also currently applying for a grant for a hydroponics system they designed to grow clover for the Wildlife Rescue Center.

In addition to science, Kerry uses the YES garden to build a connections to food, health, and nature.  Since joining the department, she has incorporated a heavier focus on nutrition and healthy eating, even bringing in guest chefs to show teens how to use the food they’ve grown.  She believes it is important to have teens draw connections between food from the grocery store and food from the garden. In one lesson, the teens compared basil from the garden and the grocery store,  and they were able to see how much fresher basil from the garden was.

The teens enjoy harvesting their garden crops, but they also really like being able to teach younger children what they’ve learned in the outdoor classroom.  The opportunity to facilitate their own lessons empowers the teens to become the teachers. In collaboration with the Saint Louis Science Center GROW Exhibit, the teens were able to lead a lesson for children making “rice cake pizzas” using fresh basil picked from the garden.

Kerry’s favorite thing to plant with her students is tomatoes because she likes eating them! But she also enjoys working with native plants because even though they’re local to Missouri, it’s often the first time the teens are interacting with them.  

Her advice to other school gardeners is to get students to appreciate the little things in the garden like worms and bugs.  It’s all connected and it’s important to get students comfortable with being in nature!