Growing future gardeners

Rebecca Tall Brown grew up with plants all around thanks to her father, Bill, who founded City Farmers Nursery in San Diego, Cali. Her father’s love of plants was instilled in her from a young age as she helped take care of the plants.

Brown is now all grown up and the marketing manager of the homey garden center that offers a complete line of organic plants, including fruit trees, native plants and cactus and succulents. City Farmers focuses on hard-to-find items and personal service to set it apart from the big box stores. In addition, it offers canning supplies, pond supplies and even chickens and other small farm animals.

Tall has been cultivating new gardeners since opening his doors for business. With more than 100 school gardens under his belt, as well as a focus on children’s activities such as an annual pumpkin growing contest, he delights in delighting city kids. “We have a different kind of place,” he notes. “We have chickens, ducks, goats, turtles and even a pony named Clyde. Kids can’t see animals these days without paying money, but they can here.”

Develop an “education-friendly” approach. The integrated approach works well on the other side of the country as well. In Atlanta, Ga., Farmer D Organics prides itself on a store garden that is “education-friendly,” notes Daron “Farmer D” Joffe. The dynamic entrepreneur developed his passion for spreading the word about biodynamic farming and organics in his 20s.

Joffe’s rich history began at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and moved into farming, a restaurant business and then into an organic demonstration and education farm focused on teaching children where food comes from. With many career highlights on the way, he wound up opening Farmer D Organics garden center in 2008.

Since then, Farmer D has also nurtured at least 100 school gardens for preschools, day schools, day camps and a whole range of projects. “I’ve been doing this work for a little over 15 years. It’s kind of our mission,” he says.

Farmer D’s has created theme gardens that encourage teachers to use them a curriculum resource. “We can make a math garden with beds of all sizes and shapes, so the kids can learn to calculate area and volume. Science is an obvious tie-in,” Joffe says. “Another fascinating areas is social studies — learning crop histories, how they influenced how people lived, and how seeds and crops have traveled from different countries and cultures.”

Gardening with Granny. In the middle of the nation in Loveland, Ohio, Roberta Paolo has poured her heart and soul into Granny’s Garden School since 2002. With a bungalow in this Cincinnati suburb just down the street from her grandchildren’s elementary school, “Granny” Paolo encouraged the children to pick all the flowers they wanted from her backyard garden, pull carrots, savor sun-warmed tomatoes and just play in the soil.

Picking up her grandchildren at Loveland Elementary School one day, a light bulb went off in her head and she saw how to share her love of flowers and gardening with even more children while providing beauty, color and food on the barren grounds. By next spring, the garden was started. That fall, 17 teachers had their own class gardens. Today, more than 100 vegetable gardens, flowers, herbs, an orchard and a nature trail make the 24-acre site one of the largest and most comprehensive gardens in the nation.

One of Granny’s many partners is Natorp’s, Inc. in Mason, Ohio. Starting in 1916 as a landscape service company by William Natorp, the family business now features a 400-acre nursery, an outlet center and a landscape and maintenance business.

“We’ve been involved with Roberta and her program since the very beginning, and will continue working with her where we can,” says Ron Wilson, marketing manager. “It’s an outstanding program not only for the kids, but for the parents and everyone involved. Roberta’s commitment to this program is unreal.” The nursery offers coupons for free plants in Granny’s “Family Garden Starter Kit.”

Working through challenges. While a school garden creates community involvement, happy feelings and an appreciation for nature, starting one presents some challenges.

“With a lot of schools, it can be challenging to raise the funds,” Joffe says. “Creating and funding a curriculum comes next. Then there are maintenance issues. The last challenge is what do to in the summer.

“First of all, a school garden doesn’t have to be expensive,” Joffe continues. “At Farmer D’s we have built gardens ranging anywhere from $500 to $5,000, but the average is about $2,000-2,500. There are many grants available from various sources such as the PTA, Captain Planet and Whole Foods market.”

Ongoing maintenance can be a problem. Oftentimes the “movers and shakers” in a school garden project are parents and teachers with little or no garden experience.

“When we offer our initial design services, we also want to be realistic about the maintenance commitment,” Joffe says. “Maintenance is an option we offer. We can also run a program with the kids and one of our staff.”

Finally, there is the challenge of summer break. “One great option is to have families adopt the beds for the summer — then it becomes a community garden,” says Joffe. “You can also plant a cover crop and let the beds ‘rest’ during the summer. Or have the children plant a low maintenance crop like sweet potatoes when they leave and come back in fall to harvest.” Of course, irrigation is a necessity in any case.

Along the same lines, school gardens are often abandoned because the interested parents and teachers move on. To prevent this, Paolo founded a 502(c)3 nonprofit with a volunteer board of directors overseeing the organization. The non-profit also holds workshops for interested teachers and parents, with more than 275 educators from 120 institutions visiting the gardens for a tour and information about the nuts and bolts of starting and maintaining a school garden.

City Farmers is holding its first “School Gardens 101” class this summer. Parents and teachers can learn the basics on fundraising, establishing and maintaining school gardens at no charge.
 

Helen M. Stone is a freelance writer and business owner based in Las Vegas, NV.