Cultivating Young Gardeners

Palo Alto Weekly, Wednesday, November 21, 2001

Cultivating young gardeners
School gardens offer a place to learn and watch things grow
by Bryan Chin

At first, Holly Taylor didn't expect kids at Belle Haven School in Menlo Park to catch on to liking the blood oranges offered at the school's garden club every Friday.

"They were grossed out by them," said Taylor, who coordinates the school's Collective Roots Garden Project. "But then there was this change around, and after a while a few came up to me and said when they went to the grocery store they made their moms buy blood oranges instead of regular ones."

It may seem like just a small change in taste for a small group of kids, but to Taylor, that shift to the less-popular fruit actually served as a telling indication that the program she has nurtured for the past two years is heading in the right direction.

Like many schools in Menlo Park and its neighboring districts, Belle Haven is working on integrating a garden program into its curriculum. Heralded by many educators and advocates as a perfect way to improve nutritional knowledge and environmental awareness, school gardens have become a hot topic in urban and suburban communities. They provide chances for city-oriented kids to experience the responsibilities of nurturing a plot of land and at the same time understand where the food they eat every night at dinner comes from.

Ohlone Elementary School in Palo Alto, with both a garden and a farm on its property, is at the forefront locally of integrating gardens into its curriculum. An acre of land has been set aside for the school's organic garden, orchard, pond and meadow areas. Redwood trees provide shade for the two sheep, two ducks, two rabbits and one goat that students help take care of.

"A garden is a wonderful resource for any school," said Mariana Keller, chair of the Ohlone School Farm Council. "A lot of children and families really care for what we have here. It's almost like having your own little private countryside, and an educational one at that."

Well-established gardens like the one at Ohlone, while serving as well-integrated environmental sanctuaries and educational tools for students, also provide a example for schools like Belle Haven that are just starting up their own garden programs.

"We're trying to be a resource for the community," Keller said. "We're definitely looking to work with other schools and run reciprocal field trips with them."

The Palo Alto-based Valley of Heart's Delight Project is one of the many local organizations whose goal is help assist teachers with integrating gardens into their curriculum. According to Susan Stansbury, project director of Valley of Heart's Delight, that transition can and should be a smooth one.

"We're trying to help bridge the gap (between gardens and teachers who may not have much of a gardening background)," she said. "We try to provide support and look to see how teachers can incorporate what they're teaching to a garden."

The Valley of Heart's Delight Project also works to establish corporate partnerships and provide other economic support for schools just getting started.

"Our entire project is about reconnecting people to the forces of food, reminding them where food comes from and rebuilding their connection to earth," said Stansbury. "Establishing school gardens is a big part of it, of course."

She cites the Berkeley-based Edible Schoolyard program as a model of success. With ties to Berkeley farmers and funding from the Berkeley school district, the program at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley has assured many advocates nationwide that schools gardens can be very beneficial to both the students and communities involved with them.

"There is a movement going on, which has even accumulated in there being a state goal of having a garden in every school," said Stansbury, referring to the "Garden in Every School" initiative launched by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin in 1995.

Though there are signs of support at the state level, at the district level many local schools are struggling to get their programs better established financially, Stansbury said.

"Right now (our garden is) parent-funded," said Keller, who is also a parent of two children at Ohlone. "I think it should be a resource considered in the same light as science and other academic subjects. As well as having children fall in love with nature, it gets kids to put their hands in the dirt and plant seeds and watch them grow. It is a core way of teaching responsibility."

Many newer programs have found financial and physical support from local businesses. Employees of Hewlett Packard Co., for one, recently volunteered at Belle Haven to help redesign garden spaces and interior courtyards. With only a few plots of land to work with and two garden clubs for kids to participate in as of now, Taylor says fund-raisers, volunteer workdays and consulting from other schools have done nothing but help expand the school's mission to be more like the Edible Schoolyard.

"If everyone shares what they know, we can all benefit from it.," she said. "I can't even believe what it's going to be like when the kids start eating the food from their own garden."