HTES Garden/Outdoor Classroom

By:

 

 

Why a garden?

The goal for the Horseshoe Trails garden is for all students to have an opportunity to experience gardening. For many of our students, this will be their first gardening experience and we hoped to ignite a passion for future gardeners and stewards of the environment.  Teachers will utilize the garden as a tool for multidisciplinary academic learning. Students will develop in physical, social-emotional, academic and wellness by their experience in the garden.  They will learn about nutrition and healthy choices.

The garden is a meaningful, real-world learning environment.  By teaching children to plan, compost, maintain,harvest and nurture a garden, we are creating future stewards of the environment who are more likely to engage in these practices in the future.  Our garden will show the students that taking care of our planet is important, just like their academic subjects.  It will lead to discussion about supporting locally grown produce, reducing our carbon emissions, saving money and paying attention to nutrition.

When students are involved in a hands-on gardening experience, they are more likely to value and try healthy foods like vegetables.  The garden provides a meaningful opportunity for teachers to discuss nutritious food choices and educate both parents and students about current nutritional guidelines and make comparisons between locally grown and other food sources.    Gardening knowledge empowers the studentsto make food choices that are healthy for them, their communities, and the environment.

Before Pic..

 

Funding:

Our school has tried made a few attempts to start a garden in the past but lack of funding was a major obstacle. This year a parent volunteer applied for the following grants:
1)Western Growers Foundation

• 2)Mantis Tiller
• 3)Whole Foods Garden Grants
• 4)Annie's Gardens

We were awarded the Western Growers Foundation grant and the Whole Foods Garden Grant. Our garden budget included
tools, curriculum materials, structural needs and planting materials. We purchased seven raised planter beds, a drip irrigation system, a storage system, seating and group discussion area, soil, garden tools and seeds and starter plants,
among other items.  Going forward we believe that contributions from our PTO will be able to sustain our financial needs.

 

Getting Organized:
We assembled a group of parents and had monthly planning meetings with our Principal.  Members of the group were
each assigned tasks to complete by the following meeting.  We created a list of “Wish” items and created signage in our front office called “HTES Giving Garden”   Parents "picked" a fruit or veggie that had an item that was needed for garden.  Items included soil, watering cans, seeds, shovel, tomato cages, gloves etc.  We had a GREAT response from our parents and obtained the majority of requested items.

 

 

Planning and Construction:

As evident from the pictures, our garden had a lot of weeds that we needed to contend with.  With the help of some goats, girl scouts and parents, the weeds disappeared! The construction portion took planning and foresight.  You must plan with an end in mind, but of course things always change!  We decided to do raised-beds and we needed to determine the location of our water source.  Our Facilities Director hooked us up to the main water box - that was actually located in the middle of our site – yes – that was planned out ahead of time too!! We semi-leveled the ground and then placed a fabric weed barrier over the entire site.  Of course, weeds sprouted out of the little holes from the pins we used to pin it down!  But we pull those out and will eventually put down a ground cover – wood chips/straw. 

After receiving a survey from the teachers it was decided that each grade would have a theme, so we got a raised bed planter for each grade. Then, of course a master gardener told us they were too shallow, so we stacked them and condensed.  Once we knew each planters’ location, built them right on top of the barrier.  We ran drip supply lines to each planter and then installed several drip lines into each planter and as we add more and more plants we can splice those off to multiple plants.  Consider the drip emitter rate/water flow when attaching emitters.  That is, how many gallons of water per hour.  Our drip system runs through a timer first.  We had to play with the duration and frequency to get it right.  We also split the main water source to go to a regular old hose bib and garden hose for manual watering and hand washing! 

Planting:

A master gardener was invited to present to our teachers on how to incorporate the garden into the curriculum and to utilize it as an outdoor classroom.  Our Principal sent out a communication to the teachers instructing them what weeks they were to begin their planting.  Since it was January when the communication went out, many teachers opted to start seedlings
in the classroom and plant tin the garden beds once the threat of frost had ceased.   The teachers requested the items they needed from the Garden Committee (i.e. seeds, peat cups, soil etc) and the committee complied with their requests. Each grade had a theme.  They are as follows:

• 
  Kindergarden-5 senses garden
• 1^st-Salsa garden
• 2nd-Butterfly garden
• 3^rd-pizza garden
• 4^th-3 sisters garden (corn, beans
  & squash)
• 5^th-Colonial garden
• 6^th- Herb garden

A binder of lessons that could be performed with the soil was also prepared and left in the teachers’ lounge for their review.

2nd grade Butterfly garden..

Kindergarten 5 senses garden...

 

Maintenance:

A sign up genius was created www.signupgenius.com that was utilized to track parent volunteers to maintain the garden.  Every day there is at least one individual who checks the garden to make sure the plants are properly irrigated, weed,
etc.  We do not anticipate that we will need to have daily monitoring once we are better established.  We are still trying to figure out what the optimal irrigation levels are.  We are always learning! A task list along with rules for the garden was created and posted in the garden.  

Communication:

We posted our progress on our PTO website http://htesparents.com/about-us/outdoor-classroom/ , facebook, and weekly newsletters.  We also are planning on showcasing the garden during our biggest fundraiser in the Spring, the Hoedown.  To drive traffic to the garden, we are going to hold rock painting and give out insect/butterfly tattoos. We are also registered as Master Junior Gardeners and are certified as a Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.

 

Weed and Pest Control:

We are trying to keep the garden as organic as possible which means no pesticides.  As aforementioned, we utilized weed barrier and we have parent volunteers to pick the weeds as needed.  The Kindergarten classes are going to do a ladybug release in April in coordination of a book they are reading and a math lesson. The ladybugs are a form of natural pest
control.  We also plan to add marigolds which are also a deterrent.

Other/Next Steps:

We are thrilled to see reading lessons taking place in the garden, children calculating the area of a planting bed and classes peeking in to see how much growth their plants are making! We have complied and list of rules that need to be adherred to so that all may enjoy the garden for years to come. These rules have been hung in our garden.

 

 

We need to place a mesh border around the perimeter of the garden to keep out unwanted critters and a source of shade to protect the plants from the hot AZ summer sun.  We plan to build a wood pergola as shading and are currently awaiting approval from our facilities director.