After Whole Foods partnered with Gateway Greening for Chefs in a Garden gala, in 2017, Whole Foods found themselves engrossed in Gateway Greening’s mission and was inspired to do more to impact food access issues in our community. Whole Foods Marketdecided Gateway Greening was the perfect fit for the One Dime at a Time program.
Whole Foods Market offers customers the option to donate $0.10 bag credit to Gateway Greening during the months of April, May, and June. Donations will be provided by Whole Foods Town and Country and Whole Foods Brentwood. Whole Foods has also agreed to provide reusable bags at all upcoming Gateway Greening workshops and events, through their Better Bags program.
“Gateway Greening is excited about the partnership with Whole Foods as part of their One Dime at a Time program. Whole Foods have been a partner with Gateway Greening over the years, and their support is greatly appreciated.” said Matt Schindler, Executive Director of Gateway Greening.
Gateway Greening, a local nonprofit organization, educates and empowers people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. The support from Whole Foods and the St. Louis community will continue aiding over 200 community and school gardens in the St. Louis region, that can connect people to the land, to their food, and each other. Gateway Greening will participate in a number of in-store tabling’s and The Whole Foods Kids Club in both Brentwood on May 27th and June 3rd, and Town and Country store on April 28th, May 26th, and June 6th, from 10:00am-1:00pm.
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About Gateway Greening
Gateway Greening is a non-profit organization that educates and empowers people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. Gateway Greening has been working to provide creative, grassroots solutions to urban problems since 1984. Programs include supporting more than 200 community and youth-focused gardens across the St. Louis area through educational opportunities, grants, and technical assistance; founding and providing ongoing material and educational support for community fruit and nut orchards; and Seed to STEM program which assists teachers in creating hands-on lessons in the school garden connected to federal education standards.
For more information on Gateway Greening and its programs visit www.gatewaygreening.org or call 314-588-9600.
Each quarter, Lucky’s Market partners with three organizations as the recipients of their BagsforChange program. During the quarter, guests who bring in reusable bags during their shopping are given a wooden dime (their bag credit). They can then choose to donate this dime to one of our three partner organizations. What’s more, Lucky’s Market will match each donation!
Gateway Greening has been chosen as a Lucky’s Market Bags for Change partner for the current quarter which ends on May 26, 2018. “Gateway Greening greatly appreciates being chosen for the Lucky’s Market Bags for Change program. Lucky’s Market has been a big supporter of Gateway Greening over the years, and we are grateful for this partnership,” said Matt Schindler, Executive Director of Gateway Greening.
Gateway Greening, a local nonprofit organization, educates and empowers people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. The support from Lucky’s Market and the St. Louis community will continue aiding over 200 community and school gardens in the St. Louis region, that can connect people to the land, to their food, and each other. Gateway Greening will be at the Rock Hill location on Sunday, March 18th, Sunday, April 15th, and Sunday, May 6th, from 1pm-4pm passing out information, and connecting to the community.
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About Gateway Greening
Gateway Greening is a non-profit organization that educates and empowers people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. Gateway Greening has been working to provide creative, grassroots solutions to urban problems since 1984. Programs include supporting more than 200 community and youth-focused gardens across the St. Louis area through educational opportunities, grants, and technical assistance; founding and providing ongoing material and educational support for community fruit and nut orchards; and Seed to STEM program which assists teachers in creating hands-on lessons in the school garden connected to federal education standards.
For more information on Gateway Greening and its programs visit www.gatewaygreening.org or call 314-588-9600.
Garden Intern Clara and Demonstration Garden Volunteer Theresa preparing to fill potato towers with soil and compost. Potato tower experiement, spring 2017.
Building from Blogs
After reading several gardening blogs which enthusiastically endorsed potato towers in spring but never followed up to share how the towers had performed post-harvest time, the staff of Gateway Greening decided to put this technique to the test. Our goal was to see if potato towers are an effective method of vertically growing sweet potatoes as a way to maximize growing space in the home or community garden.
Limited Resources, Limited Testing
Although our staff originally planned to test this method using three towers of various heights and widths, we scaled the experiment back to create just one tower due to soil availability. (At the end of the day, expanding school and community gardens comes first. Experiments in theDemonstration Garden come second.)
The potato tower we constructed is close to six feet tall. Built around an irrigation tube (PVC pipe with holes drilled into it) and lined with burlap, Demonstration Garden intern Clara and volunteer Theresa filled the tower with thin, alternating layers of topsoil and compost. Next, small holes were cut into the sides of the tower at regular intervals for sweet potato slips to be tucked in.
Over the course of the summer, volunteers and staff carefully watered the tower by spraying down the burlap sides and also by using a hose to run water through the irrigation tube. Little by little, the slips began to flush out into vines and flourish.
Did it Work?
Although several sweet potatoes were harvested from the tower this fall, Garden Program Manager Dean Gunderson has decided to repeat this experiment again next summer. Technically the experiment was a success – but there was definite room for improvement.
Volunteers from Nike, and Eco Constructors helped to harvest sweet potatoes from our experimental growing towers. The harvest may only have been 30 pounds, but it was certainly fun!
When we constructed our potato towers, we made a fundamental mistake: we planted the tower with sweet potato slips shortly after it was constructed. Throughout the summer the layers of soil and compost settled significantly, damaging the delicate sweet potato slips and their root structures.
As a result, we harvested few sweet potatoes and they seemed to be quite small, as though stunted early on. Our volunteers also observed that all of slips planted in the lower half of the tower died, and suggested that the sheer weight of the soil above prevented the potatoes from establishing below.
Potato Tower Experiment Planning for 2018
In 2018, Demonstration Garden staff and volunteers will be repeating the potato tower experiment with the original (now settled) tower and a second tower that will be shorter in size for comparison. Keep an eye out for photos and updates next spring!
March in the Demonstration Garden. The 45-degree angle trellis was built over an existing raised bed, seen here full of winter cover crops.
One of the challenges of growing food in an urban environment is not only finding a space to start a garden, but also clean soil to grow food in. As a result, Gateway Greening is always looking for new ways to make the most of our available space.
Growing Up
Last summer, Garden Program Manager Dean Gunderson decided to tackle the 45-degree angle trellis. The concept is fairly simple. Instead of using a shade cloth to cover and protect vulnerable cool season crops, he would build a trellis and grow a vining plant across it. If it worked, the cool season crops would be protected by the leaves of the vine above, and would result in twice the harvest amount from the one growing space.
To start, Dean and long-time volunteer John Newman teamed up to design and build the trellis using spare lumber and cattle panel.
“The hardest part [of building the trellis] was figuring out how to stabilize the flexible cattle panel and how to attach the legs to it since it was narrower than our wide [garden] beds.” – Dean Gunderson, Garden Program Manager.
In the end, Dean and John built a wooden frame to support a single length of cattle panel and attached wooden legs to the sides for support. By varying the lengths of the wooden legs, they were able to create the desired 45-degree angle.
Planting for Harvest & Feedback
In the spring cabbage, broccoli, and other cool season crops were planted in the raised bed below the trellis. These are crops that often die off as summer arrives, and would be effective indicators of how well the experiment worked. A few weeks later, volunteers planted four tromboncino squash plants at the low end of the trellis to be the “shade vine.”
This experiment was particularly fun to watch. Unfortunately, the squash’s growth did not take off until summer heat hit, meaning it was not able to provide significant protection for the spring cool season crops. However, once the heat hit the tromboncino squash plants grew at staggering speeds, creating a shady nook in no time. More than one Saturday volunteer and staff member observed that it was a perfect place for a yoga mat and a nap!
Tromboncino squash taking over the 45-degree angle trellis in August of 2017.
Although it did not provide adequate cover in spring, the squash was more than able to provide cover for fall cool season crops. As a result, volunteers were able to plant carrots, cabbage, and a few other fall crops earlier than we typically would. The harvest from these crops was smaller than anticipated, but we suspect that was due to a lack of sunlight – the tromboncino squash vines really took off!
Our Recommendation:
Using vining plants in place of shade cloths can be an effective method of maximizing space while still protecting cool season crops, however, it does require extra management. Choose vining plants that will grow and provide shade at the time you need it most. For some of the more aggressive growers, make time to prune away excess vines to permit adequate sunlight to reach crops below.
Fun fact: Saturday volunteers harvested 263.45 pounds of tromboncino squash from the trellis experiment this summer. That’s 263.45 pounds harvest in just three months!
Joe Maddox of Eco Constructors and local artist Steve Ingraham spent a morning helping to set up our two of our 2017 experiments: Garden Soxx and Potato Towers.
“I wish I could garden at home but…”
One of the most common phrases I hear from volunteers helping in the Demonstration Garden on Saturdays is: “I wish I could garden at home, but I live in an apartment.” On the other hand, we have several older individuals who tell us they “miss gardening but I just can’t bend over to pull weeds anymore.”
At Gateway Greening, we believe that gardening should be accessible to everyone so when an opportunity to test a new container gardening product came up, we took it!
Beginning the Garden Soxx Experiment
Thanks to a donation byEco Constructors, a local business that specializes in sustainable, low-impact erosion control products, Gateway Greening received several Garden Soxxto test. These short tubes are made using a special mesh filled with organic growing medium fromSt. Louis Composting,and weigh about 30 pounds each when dry. Our goal was to see if Garden Soxx could be an effective method for container gardening in urban spaces.
Pole beans sprouting during the Garden Soxx Experiment at the Demonstration Garden in Summer of 2017.
For our Garden Soxx experiment, we placed several tubes along the edge of a brick patio in the Demonstration Garden. By doing so, we hoped to create conditions similar to an apartment balcony or concrete patio. One placed, staff and volunteers planted a small variety of crops commonly found in both home and community gardens: chives, purple basil, three different varieties of hot peppers, pole beans, and radishes.
Planting was a breeze. Using a small pocket knife, we made holes in the mesh fabric that were just big enough for our seeds and seedlings to fit inside. For the seedlings, we scooped out a small amount of growing medium to make space for the root systems. The extra medium was gently packed around and over the seedling’s roots to stabilize and protect the plant while it got established.
Throughout the summer volunteers and staff vigilantly watered the plants several times a week using a garden hose or watering can. Thanks to the mesh tube, we saw very little soil run-off and overwatering was impossible. Excess water simply ran out!
Before long, we started harvesting a small amount of produce from the chives, basil, and each of the hot pepper plants. Unfortunately, the resident rabbits made a feast of our pole beans shortly after germination, and our fall crop of radishes did not germinate – likely due to dry conditions.
A mix of basil, hot pepper varieties, and poles beans in Garden Soxx on the Demonstration Garden Patio in Spring of 2017.
Did it Work?
Overall, the Garden Soxx were an effective method for container gardening in an urban space, but they did present a few challenges as the season wore on.
Firstly, that the Garden Soxx needed almost constant watering during dry spells and the height of summer heat. With their sunny location and lack of wind protection on the edge of the patio, the Garden Soxx were prone to drying out quickly which stressed the plants. The second challenge was that the Garden Soxx needed a few applications of organic fertilizer throughout the summer to support ongoing food production.
Our Recommendation:
Garden Soxx would be ideal for someone looking to grow annual vegetables or flowers with shallow root systems on a balcony or raised patio. Gardeners using Garden Soxx should be prepared to water regularly, and add small amounts of fertilizer as needed. Want to check out Garden Soxx first hand? Stop by the Carriage House during the growing season in 2018!
Over the years, many people have expressed their concern over Gateway Greening’s decision to use treated lumber for gardening purposes. Today, we would like to take a moment to address those concerns and to provide information on the different types of treated lumber available in general and the materials Gateway Greening uses in particular.
What is Treated Lumber?
Treated lumber is wood that has had compounds added to it in order to prevent wood-decaying organisms (bacteria, fungus, and insects) from decomposing the wood (1). Treated lumber is typically “pressure treated,” meaning high pressures are used to force preservative compounds into the wood. This provides more protection long term than a simple surface coat would.
Unlike untreated lumber, which will quickly start to break down when left exposed to the elements and wood-decaying organisms, treated wood remains usable for many years (1).
The History – CCA Lumber Treatment
Throughout much of the 20th century, lumber companies relied on a lumber treatment that utilized Chromium, Copper, and Arsenic (CCA). Studies found that arsenic could be leaching into soils that came into contact with the CCA treated lumber. However, arsenic is a compound found naturally in soils and the leaching was considered to be within safe limits.
Although CCA treatments were not found to pose an “unreasonable risk to the public” (2), the EPA decided to reduce Arsenic exposure, (3) (2) leading companies to cease manufacturing CCA lumber for residential use (4) in December of 2003.
After the 2003 EPA decision1, horticulturally focused authors and agriculture enthusiasts began to warn gardeners of the risk of using CCA treated lumber for gardening purposes.Similarly, Gateway Greening does not use CCA treated lumber for its gardens, urban farm, or other civic greening projects.
Lumber after CCA
Volunteers installing raised beds at the Grant’s View Library Garden, 2016.
In the aftermath of the 2003 EPA decision1, the lumber industry developed several alternative treatments which provided the same level of decay resistance as CCA treated lumber, without using arsenic or chromium.
Gateway Greening uses the Lifewood brand of lumber which is treated with micronized copper azole. According to the Missouri Department of Agriculture and the USDA’s Forest Products Laboratory, Lifewood’s copper azole treatment “is comprised of 96-percent copper and 4- percent tebuconazole,” a fungicide (5) (6).
The Lifewood brand was the first lumber treatment brand to be certified by the Scientific Certification System (SCS) as an “Environmentally Preferable Product,” meaning that it meets qualifications for this environmental certification based on an independent life cycle assessment (7). (The qualifications to receive this certification can be explored on the SCS’s website (8)). Products that receive Environmentally Preferable Product certification have been independently assessed to verify that the product is better for the environment than the prevailing, similar products (8)). Products that receive Environmentally Preferable Product certification have been independently assessed to verify that the product is better for the environment than the prevailing, similar products.
The copper azole lumber treatment is considered to be a safe choice for raised vegetable beds. University of Missouri Extension states that copper azole is as safe for raised beds as a similar type of wood treatment, known as ACQ, and confirms, “exposure to copper from contact with ACQ-treated wood is not expected to have adverse effects on the health of adults or children” (9).
While it is a known fact that some amount of copper and the fungicide tebuconazole will leach from the lumber into the soil over time, this happens at such low levels it is not considered dangerous. In fact, copper azole treated wood is actually suggested by Iowa State University Extension for use in raised vegetable beds (10).
The use of Copper in Lumber Treatments
Copper is a common component of treated lumber because of copper’s antifungal properties (2)(9). Copper’s antifungal nature helps to prevent fungus from colonizing and decomposing wood, allowing treated lumber to last longer than untreated lumber.
Although there is a fair amount of copper in Lifewood brand lumber, the life cycle assessment of the product states,
Wood products treated with the Osmose MicroPro process result in the release of 90% to 99% less copper into aquatic and terrestrial environments when compared to standard treated wood products. The very small amount released bonds readily to organic matter in the soil and becomes biologically inactive, thus effectively eliminating eco-toxic impacts (11).
In short, although there is more copper in the copper azole lumber it actually leaches less copper into soil than the CCA treated lumber over time. The small amounts of copper that do leach are soon trapped in the soil, meaning it cannot be taken up by vegetable plants.
Did you know? All of Gateway Greening’s raised beds are pre-built by volunteers and Dig It STL crew members. The effort of these individuals is a tremendous help to the local gardeners who receive beds through our Bi-annual Expansion Award.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have also studied copper leaching while studying CCA treated lumber for use in gardening, and discuss some of their findings in a publication. When discussing potential leaching of arsenic (As), chromium, (Cr) and copper (Cu) from the old CCA lumber, the researchers found that:
When trace elements such as these three are added to soil, most of what is added is not available for plant uptake. Chromium and copper are bound very strongly by soil particles, especially by soil clays and organic matter. They are most strongly bound in near-neutral soils (pH 6–8) and become more soluble in acidic soils (pH less than 5). As a result, Cr and Cu tend not to move in soil, and only a small fraction of what is added to the soil can be taken up by plants (2).
The publication later emphasizes this by stating that gardeners can avoid potential plant uptake of these nutrients by “Maintain(ing) soil pH in the near-neutral range (pH 6–7). Solubility of Cr and Cu is greatly reduced in neutral soils,” and, “Maintain high soil organic matter levels by adding compost or manure. Organic matter strongly binds As, Cr, and Cu and thus reduces their availability to plants,” two things that gardeners typically do as part of their regular gardening efforts (2). Even if some copper is absorbed by plants, Pennsylvania State University states that:
…the human body can tolerate relatively large intakes of Cr and Cu and is also able to excrete excess amounts of these metals. Furthermore, plants are less tolerant of Cr and Cu than humans are. This means that Cr and Cu would kill plants before plant tissue concentrations could get high enough to cause a chronic toxic effect in humans from eating the plants (2).
In summary, research shows that although the copper azole treatment is 96% copper and is known to leach into the surrounding soil:
Leached copper is quickly bound up in clay and organic matter so that it is highly unlikely that garden plants would absorb it.
Copper is far more toxic to plants than humans, meaning that garden plants would die before carrying harmful levels of copper to the dinner table.
Copper is actually an essential nutrient for humans, and our bodies are able to absorb the needed amount, then safely pass any excess.
The use of Fungicide in Lumber Treatments
Like copper, the fungicide tebuconazole is added to copper azole treated lumber in order to prevent fungus from rotting away lumber. More specifically, the fungicide is needed to control certain wood-rotting fungus that copper cannot kill (12).
According to a study done for the European Union, “An accumulation of tebuconazole in soil is not anticipated when tebuconazole is used as a wood preservative” (13). It further states that, “Tebuconazole has a low mobility potential” (13) meaning that the fungicide is unlikely to leach from the treated lumber and into the surrounding garden soil to any significant degree.
Two different studies where tebuconazole was sprayed on the soil surface found that it was readily locked up by the soil during experiments, with most of it staying within 2” of the surface (14). Further research revealed that tebuconazole’s mobility in an agricultural field (as opposed to a controlled laboratory setting) is similarly immobile, though when organic matter is added it becomes more mobile in the soil with most of it remaining within 1-4 inches of the soil surface (15). However, the organic matter also speeds up tebuconazole’s decomposition in the soil so that it has a half-life of only 8-12 days when soil has added organic matter (15).
Although these results are not a perfect analogy because the studies relied on applying tebuconazole directly to the surface of the soil rather than being bound to wood, they do provide a fairly accurate idea of the movement and leaching capabilities of the tebuconazole fungicide used in treated lumber.
Lumber used by Gateway Greening
Gateway Greening also uses treated lumber to build compost bins; something that is especially important when it is in constant contact with decomposers.
The treated lumber Gateway Greening uses to build raised beds is only treated with copper and a fungicide tebuconazole. This type of treated lumber results in far less leaching than alternative lumber treatments. The components that do leach are mostly locked up by clay and organic matter in soil meaning it is harder for the plant to absorb it.
Copper becomes even harder for plants to absorb when the soil is a neutral pH, a goal most St. Louis gardeners strive for in order to grow the best possible vegetables.
It is also harder for plants to absorb copper if organic matter (compost) is added, which gardeners in the St. Louis region typically do in order to promote healthy vegetable production.
If a plant does absorb copper, the plant would die before it could absorb enough to be dangerous for human consumption. Even if someone were to eat a plant that has absorbed copper, and the copper had moved into the edible parts of the plant, the human body is adapted to get rid of excess copper – an essential element in the human diet.
Lumber treated with tebuconazole is not expected to release worrisome amounts of the fungicide into the soil given that it is found in the wood and in the soil immediately next to it only. Even when the fungicide was sprayed on the soil surface during testing trials, most of the fungicide only moved 1-4” down when soil was properly amended. However, amendments sped up the breakdown of the fungicide.
Why not use Untreated Wood or Cedar?
Many ask about “natural” alternatives to treated wood, or ask why we do not just use untreated wood or naturally rot-resistant wood like cedar. While we technically could use “natural” alternatives, there are several key reasons why Gateway Greening recommends the treated option instead.
The main reason we do not use untreated lumber is because the most readily available untreated lumber is pine, which is a softwood and rots very quickly. Researchers at the University of Georgia report that, “pine has almost no resistance to rot or insects and has a very short life when used in direct contact with soil” (16).
Untreated hardwoods like oak are more rot-resistant but have their own drawbacks. Firstly, only the heartwood of lumber is resistant to rot, with the sapwood of even rot-resistant species being just as susceptible to rot as the sapwood of the more rot-prone softwoods (1). So for woods like oak to be longer lasting than pine you need to make sure you are buying lumber that doesn’t contain sapwood. It is also generally difficult to find those harder woods in sizes good for raised beds and they are significantly more expensive than treated pine, and “based on most research, provide only slightly more rot and insect resistance than pine” (16).
By far the favorite wood material for those trying to avoid all treatment processes is western red cedar. Although cedar is a great wood if you are trying to avoid all treatment it is still not ideal for Gateway Greening’s school and community garden programs. The biggest reason is cost. Cedar boards usually cost four to five times more than treated pine. This much greater cost would reduce the number of gardens Gateway Greening currently serves by 75%.
In addition to the upfront cost, despite cedar’s rot-resistant nature, it still has a shorter lifespan than treated lumber when in contact with soil (17). Researchers at the University of Georgia report that fence posts made of treated pine can last up to twice as long as western cedar. Even comparing the best case for cedar to the worst case for treated lumber, the treated lumber still lasts longer (17). Although a fence post isn’t exactly the same as a raised bed it does give a good idea of how the different woods will respond to being in constant contact with soil and regional weather conditions.
Final Thoughts
We hope that we have been able to address and alleviate many of the concerns gardeners often voice at the use of treated lumber in local community garden projects. If not, please do not hesitate to reach out to our staff to ask questions!
Gateway Greening is grateful to announce a new partnership with Wells Fargo Advisors. Within our community and school garden program, Wells Fargo Advisors is providing $100,000 in funding to Gateway Greening to build new gardens and to expand existing gardens. The new partnership allows Gateway Greening to assist more community-led projects with urban agriculture resources and training. For 2017, this funding will help build or expand 25 community or school gardens.
“It’s great to join hands with non-profits and make a positive impact,” said David Kowach, head of Wells Fargo Advisors. “It brings even more fulfillment to the work we do every day.”
“Gateway Greening greatly appreciates this new grant from Wells Fargo Advisors to expand and create community and school gardens in the St. Louis area.,” said Matt Schindler, Executive Director of Gateway Greening. “In terms of community development, access to healthy food, and sustainable land use, this partnership will improve the lives of hundreds of people in a wide variety of neighborhoods across the region.”
This new partnership with Wells Fargo Advisors will strengthen Gateway Greening’s garden development program. Demand for urban agricultural knowledge and resources continues to grow, and Gateway Greening has been St. Louis’ source for 33 years.
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About Gateway Greening
Gateway Greening is a nonprofit organization that educates and empowers people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. Gateway Greening has been working to provide creative, grassroots solutions to urban problems since 1984. Programs include supporting more than 220 community and school gardens across the St. Louis area through educational opportunities, garden supplies and technical assistance; and Gateway Greening’s Urban Farm, a 2.5-acre farm in downtown St. Louis that provides therapeutic horticulture and a jobs training program. Visit Gateway Greening atwww.gatewaygreening.org. @gatewaygreening.
Thursday, May 11, is Give STL Day, and this year Gateway Greening is raising $10,000 to support programs that are more than “just” gardening – like the creation of new Seed to STEM curriculum for St. Louis educators!
Drawing on more than 5 years of experience working with local K-5 teachers, the Gateway Greening Youth Educators are building a new curriculum, Seed to STEM, to help St. Louis teachers take class outside.
“We know, on average, children need to spend more time outdoors and moving than they currently do but it is difficult to fit it into the school schedule. Incorporating the school garden into the school day means that teachers and students have the opportunity to get out, move, and get their hands dirty every day, which improves mood, concentration, and learning.” – Kathleen Carson, Gateway Greening Education Manager
This new curriculum pairs Next Generation Science Standards(NGSS) and Saint Louis Public Schools science curriculum to ensure that lessons developed in the garden are more than just “extra activities.” Instead, Seed to STEM curriculum provides teachers with an opportunity to meet their curricular goals while still taking their students outside for hands-on learning activities.
“Gardens are a place of wonder and science just outside the school door! In school gardens, kids spark their curiosity and engage with the natural world. It is easier than ever to make science connections come alive with the Seed to STEM curriculum.” – Lucy Herleth, Gateway Greening Youth Educator
Exciting news! A generous donor has offered to match every dollar we raise during Give STL Day – up to $5,000! Donate now to DOUBLE your impact and support another year of youth gardening and urban agriculture in St. Louis!
Throughout St. Louis City and County, school gardens are providing valuable outdoor classrooms and living laboratories.
Children do not yet have the life experiences that allow them to incorporate the new information that they hear or read into their understanding of the world the way that adults do, making it critically important that students “get their hands dirty.” As educators, we want students to touch, feel, manipulate, and observe their surroundings with their own senses so that when the students encounter more abstract information, they have experience to “hang” it on. School gardens are cost-effective spaces in which to offer that experience.
“Our garden is a place where kids grow all kinds of things. They grow fruit, vegetables, spices, knowledge, experience, teamwork, and fun. It allows our students to be a part of something that they can create and see grow. That is the power of our garden.” – Mr. C. Rooney, Interim AP, and Garden Leader at Shaw VPA Elementary
Make a difference in St. Louis this Give STL Day – Give a gift to support programs like
Seed to STEM!
Discover more Gateway Greening supported projects at work in St. Louis:
Dig it STL – We believe that young people are powerful, and that their involvement in our community food projects is the key to a healthy and sustainable future for St. Louis.
Gateway Greening Urban Farm and City Seedstherapeutic job training program – The Gateway Greening Urban Farm is a 2.5-acre vegetable farm in downtown St. Louis. The site is used as an outdoor learning laboratory to teach the community valuable skills related to employment readiness, therapeutic horticulture, food systems, and so much more.
Storybook– We could tell you all about our network of more 220+ community gardens, but it’s more fun to let you read their stories, in their own words on the Gateway Greening Storybook.
Students volunteering at Gateway Elementary’s school garden in spring of 2017.
Creating Curriculum for St. Louis Educators
Gateway Greening youth educators have been working in local schools for the last five years, coordinating with teachers to get children outside and working in the garden. Through their work with local teachers, the Gateway Greening education team quickly realized that a curriculum that paired current education standards and outdoor lessons was needed.
Building on the five years of working with K-5 teachers and strengthening the life science focus of the program, the Gateway Greening education team launched its revamped curriculum program, Seed to STEM, in the Summer of 2016.
What is Seed to STEM?
Gateway Greening youth educators are working with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Saint Louis Public Schools science curriculum to ensure that lessons developed in the garden are not merely “extra activities.” Instead, the Seed to STEM curriculum provides classroom teachers an opportunity to meet their curricular goals while also taking their students outside and engaging in hands-on learning activities.
Students at Gateway Elementary discover earth worms in the school garden.
School gardens are valuable outdoor classrooms and living laboratories. Children do not yet have the life experiences that allow them to incorporate new information that they hear or read into their understanding of the world the way that adults do. This is why it is critically important that students get their hands dirty. As educators, we want students to touch, feel, manipulate, and observe their surroundings with their own senses so that when the students encounter more abstract information, they have experience to “hang” it on. School gardens are cost-effective spaces in which to offer that experience.
What does that experience look like for St. Louis students? When lessons are taken outside to the garden, students are asked to talk about habitats, hypothesize what part of the soil they would most likely find worms in based on what they know about habitats, and test their hypothesis by finding the worms. Another lesson may find students tipping over the logs in their garden’s stump circle to find what is living underneath.
Teachers often ask their students to measure the growth of the crops, comparing the growth of plants in the sun to plants growing in the shade, and connecting those measurements back to a photosynthesis lesson in the classroom. There’s a lot to be said for learning about food webs and, if we are really lucky, watching a hawk nab a squirrel in the middle of a garden lesson. Or, somewhat less dramatically, watch the parasitoid wap larva kill a caterpillar.
An “All-Inclusive” Curriculum
Students at Mallinckrodt Academy move class time into the school garden.
In addition to the rich environment that a school garden can offer for the life sciences, it is also a place to draw in any of the other subjects or skills taught in St. Louis schools. Math and language arts are a particular favorite with teachers and are regularly incorporated into outdoor lessons in the school garden.
One of the most important lessons explored in the school garden is social-emotional skills; using the school garden as a space to practice the skill of “[p]aying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally: (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p.4). This spring Gateway Greening youth educators have been working with Eli Horowitz, a Washington University Brown School student, to work on mindfulness in the garden.
During a mindfulness lesson, students may be asked to focus on the feeling of their breath entering and leaving their body, or the feeling of the breeze on their skin. This practice helps children (and adults) develop better self-regulation, relieve anxiety, and improve concentration. These mindfulness practices are also a transferable skill that can be useful in making scientific observations.
Gateway Greening youth educators are currently working with classroom teachers at four Saint Louis Public Schools to align lessons with both the growing season calendar and the academic calendar, building a Seed to STEM curriculum that any teacher in the St. Louis region will be able to access and adapt to their school garden.
Written by Kathleen Carson, Gateway Greening Education Manager.
Reference: Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: mindfulness meditation in everyday life. New York: Hyperion.
Looking for more ways to incorporate the school garden into your lesson plan? Stop by:
Gateway Greening’s Workshops for Educatorspage to explore monthly workshops that address the challenges and opportunities represented by teaching in school gardens
The Gateway Greening Educators Facebook group to connect with other teachers throughout St. Louis with similar interests in school gardens
Check out our In the School GardenYoutube playlist for short, actionable how-to videos that are seasonally relevant.
USDA Awards Grant to Support Green Jobs for St. Louis Teens
Gateway Greening, Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis Public Schools among organizations working together to support teens pursuing degrees and careers in food, agriculture, and natural resources
ST LOUIS, Missouri, April 4, 2017 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded a $135,000 two-year grant to local organizations that employ teens in urban farms, parks, trails, gardens, and other green space. As part of its SPECA program (Secondary Education, Two-Year Postsecondary Education, and Agriculture) in the K-12 Classroom, the agency is supporting a collaborative project of Gateway Greening, Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis Public Schools, and other community organizations, aimed at connecting urban teens with outdoor summer jobs and school-year internships that also provide opportunities for academic enrichment, career development, and civic leadership.
Specifically, funding will support youth workforce development through the efforts of the St. Louis Green Teen Alliance, a collaborative of 8 organizations who collectively recruit, employ, train, and support teens via summer jobs and school-year internships focused on productive, healthy lands and waters, ranging from community gardens in food desert neighborhoods to city parks, trails, and reserves. In addition to building critical skills like critical thinking, communication and collaboration, the effort is designed to cultivate a sense of civic pride and ownership among participants, building a future workforce with training in urban issues and solutions.
“This is far more than a summer jobs program,” says Dawna Wharton, Career and Technical Education Specialist for Saint Louis Public Schools. “Our students will learn first-hand about urban agriculture, ecology, and environmental stewardship. They’ll interact with career professionals in fields like urban planning, natural resource management, environmental engineering, education, research, and public policy. And they’ll do all of this alongside peers, working in their own neighborhoods and communities.”
The two-year grant will also fund the University of Missouri – St. Louis to lead an evaluation and assessment effort aimed at improving program impacts in the areas of knowledge and attitudinal shifts and broadening of academic and career interests among participants. Indicators of success will also include direct improvements to green space, such as local food production, ecological restoration, storm water management, and wildlife habitat.
Information on the St. Louis Green Teen Alliance, its programs, and partner organizations can be found at http://www.stlycc.org/.
This project was supported by the SPECA Program of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA, Grant#12122428
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About Gateway Greening
Gateway Greeningis a nonprofit organization that educates and empowers people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. Gateway Greening has been working to provide creative, grassroots solutions to urban problems since 1984. Programs include supporting more than 220 community and youth-focused gardens across the St. Louis area through educational opportunities, garden supplies and technical assistance, and the Gateway Greening Urban Farm, a 2.5-acre farm in downtown St. Louis that provides therapeutic horticulture and jobs training.
About Missouri Botanical Garden
The Missouri Botanical Garden’s mission is “to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment in order to preserve and enrich life.” Today, 158 years after opening, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and a center for science, conservation, education and horticultural display.
About Saint Louis Public Schools
Saint Louis Public Schoolsis the district of choice for families in the St. Louis region that provides a worldclass education and is nationally recognized as a leader in student achievement and teacher quality. The SLPS mission is to provide a quality education for all students and enable them to realize their full intellectual potential. SLPS also believes that competent, caring, properly supported teachers are essential to student learning.
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Throughout St. Louis City and County, school gardens are providing valuable outdoor classrooms and living laboratories. 
