Tips & Tricks

At Lexington Elementary, Black History is highlighted weekly with quizzes about inventors and historical figures. So, in the summer when I saw peanut plants at the Bell Demonstration Garden, I decided that not only would they be the perfect addition to our school garden, but also that a George Washington Carver “bed” could help bring […]

  The ground at Gateway Elementary was hard to dig from a long dry spell and the backfill from Pruitt Igoe buildings. I was working with 4th grade all girls’ class and their teacher Ms. Sandra Davie. We had received a donation for three apple trees from an area nursery. Ms. Davie and I were […]

We celebrated Thanksgiving a little early at Clay with a meal we grew in our garden– kale chips and roasted sweet potatoes!   Cooking at school can be a challenge. Last year, we brought a portable fire pit to the school and roasted potatoes and onions in a real fire outside by the garden. This […]

This year, I’ve visited the community garden at Crown Center for Senior Living and worked with the Happy Planters, the garden club there. One of the projects we undertook was using the greenhouse they have there to grow sweet potato slips not only for their garden but for the Youth Garden Sweet Potato Challenge. The […]

  Did you know that school gardens are a huge part of the Farm to School movement? We didn’t realize just how huge until we attended this month’s Farm to School Conference in Columbia (which featured one of Gateway Greening’s member gardens, the Falcon Garden at Halls Ferry Elementary! Go Falcons!). Over and over again, […]