Spring 2002
Granny's
Garden School started in the spring of 2002 as a volunteer initiative to
give the children in the Loveland, Ohio primary and elementary schools
the chance to pick flowers. Roberta Paolo, grandmother of two
students in the schools had been conducting gardening and woodworking classes
for parents and children in her own gardens for about five years.
She lived in the old part of Loveland with sidewalks and lots of foot traffic.
She was known for giving every child that passed by (including teenagers)
a flower from her gardens
which
spilled over into the street and climbed up the street sign. Anyone
who complimented her gardens was rewarded with a bouquet picked on the
spot. She began by offering free classes on pressing flowers and
starting plants from seed. Seeing the impact the flowers had on parents
and children Roberta wanted to reach a bigger audience but was limited
by her small yard.
One day, while picking up her grandchildren from school (she had been their "granny nanny" since they were born) she noticed someone planting mums in a raised bed in front of the primary school. The lady turned out to be Nancy Garfinkel who worked in the library at the elementary school. She was planting the mums to brighten the drab entryway. This chance encounter sparked the idea to start a school garden. Nancy introduced Roberta to Kyle Bush, the primary school principal. He loved the idea and offered to donate $500 from a grant he had just received from Wal-Mart toward the effort and introduced her to Al Brookes, the principal of the elementary school. Then, they brought in John Ames who is in charge of all the physical parts of the school district. Receiving his approval of the plan, the idea for a garden program was presented to the school board and superintendent and they gave their approval.
Between the meeting in front of the primary school and the board meeting the garden idea became a plan and then a program. Initially the program was named Granny's Gardeners and centered on giving kids the opportunity to pick flowers. It was about this time that Roberta realized just how many children there are in the two schools. The primary and elementary schools are separate schools that share a campus. All of the first-fourth graders (about 1,300 children) in Loveland attend these two schools. Upon learning this she took a deep breath and decided they would just have to plant more flowers. Early in March flyers went home introducing the garden program and requesting volunteers. More than 80 people responded volunteering to help. (One of the hard lessons of the program: lots of people say they will help only a few will actually come through.)
When presenting the program idea to the board, Roberta said the program would seek financial support but would not be dependent on it. Her idea was to make use of whatever was at hand and not have to wait for funding to make things happen. So she set about "stirring things up" so there would be more things at hand. A granny of the electronic age, she got on the internet and compiled a list of garden related resources with websites. She put together a donation request letter with "Granny's Gardener's are on a mission" in the subject and e-mailed request to about a hundred sources. Boxes of all shapes and sizes began arriving at the primary school with "Attention Granny" on the labels. They contained hundreds of dollars worth of seeds, bulbs, tubers and tools. In the process of researching on the web, she learned that in 1995 the school superintendent for the state of California mandated there would be a garden in every school. At this point she began to see the program beyond giving kids a chance to pick flowers and connect with nature and saw the many teaching possibilities.
The
plans for securing plants for the gardens included a perennial exchange
where people brought one plant to exchange and one to donate to the garden
program. It was held the last Saturday in April and yielded nearly
200 perennial plants and about $120 from the sale of plants (people who
did not have plants to trade could purchase one for $2.) Donations of plants
from local gardeners continued to come in as word of the garden program
spread. A days before the perennial exchange, the children started
digging the perennial beds. For
three days, all gym classes dug in the gardens.
For many of the children it was their first experience digging in real
dirt (not play sand). They learned how to use shovels and trowels,
shook the soil from the clumps of grass and transported it to the newly
developed compost piles and got excited whenever they saw a worm. The following
week, they came out to plant the donated perennials in the new garden.
The area in front of the primary school where the perennial beds are has
an overhang that comes out about four feet allowing little rain to fall
in this area. As a result, there was a dead zone of bare soil.
This is where we piled the sod the first spring That fall, we piled
orange cosmos and marigold plants (laden with seeds) in the same area.
By the 2nd spring this area was alive with hundreds of marigolds and cosmos
blooming.
The
money from the Wal-Mart grant was used to purchase aprons to identify the
garden volunteers. Connie Smith, the primary school nurse, volunteered
to embroider "Granny's Gardeners" on the aprons. They became the symbol
for the garden program. Soon, groups of children with their teachers
could be seen at all over the campus involved in various garden activities
led by one of Granny's
Gardeners in the now familiar green apron. The original
80 people who sign up resulted in about seven people who showed up on a
regular basis to help with garden activities. This small but dedicated
group were the core of the program. They worked diligently to cut
and remove sod and roto till new gardens.
Looking back, one might wonder why the Wal-Mart grant was not used to purchase garden tools instead of aprons. Roberta was confident there were be no trouble getting used tools. One who was in the habit of frequenting garage and estate sales weekly, she knew there were many used shovels to be had for a couple of dollars and trowels for a quarter. She did not factor in that she would have no time for garage sales. The program was started with tools from her own shed, some donated by the Clermont County Extension Agency and a few from volunteers, plus $10 worth of three for a $1 trowels from the dollar store. It was a red banner day when Home Depot donated a dozen kid sized shovels. With this hodge podge of tools they could work with two classes at a time by trading back and forth.
In the process of researching on the internet, she learned that in 1995 the school superintendent for the state of California mandated there be a garden in every school. At this point she began to see the program beyond giving kids a chance to pick flowers and connect with nature and saw the endless teaching possibilities. She scoured the library and the internet for garden based lesson plans and support material. In 1992 there was not a great deal to be found. Most of what was there had been created for the mild California climate. The challenge with a school garden program in the midwest is that the children are not in school for most of June, July, August, the prime growing months. Gardening only from March to June and September to October seriously limits the possibilities and does not give children the opportunity to see things through from seed to seed. Roberta used the good resources she found like "The Great Plant Escape" created by the University of Illinois Extension to help teach the basics, then set about creating new material to fill in where the others left off.
Somewhere along the line, a teacher asked if she could have her own class garden. And so it became part of the plan. Dede Gardis (2nd grade) and Jen Goldenberg (4th grade) volunteered to be the first to help us work out the bugs. They picked out their sites April 17 and started working them the next week. Through them we learned how to work with 25 kids at a time in a garden plot. We also learned that it was not reasonable to expect that each class would be able to dig their own gardens. When it came time to create more gardens, we decided to bring in machinery (a sod cutter and roto tiller) to help prepare the gardens. The moms cut the sod and the kids rolled it up and moved it to the compost piles. Then we would come in the next day and roto till it. (We are fortunate to have Loveland Tool Rental almost across the street from the school. The owner has generously allowed us to borrow whatever we needed for as long as we needed... at no charge.)
That first spring was one of the wettest in recorded history so it was a real challenge to get the gardens dug and actually get the kids out planting seeds. Finally, we resorted to having them plant seeds in large plastic pots. (The pots were picked from the trash, the soil donated by Evans Landscaping, and we acquired the seeds from a visitor who donated a sandwich Ziploc bag each of cosmos, blanket flower and marigold seeds and a gardener in Texas donated a gallon-size bag of zinnia seeds. We set up on the primary play ground and the kids came out one class at a time to plant seeds in the pots and see a demonstration of seeds being separated from the shaft. The pots were kept against the building on the playground so the kids could watch their seeds come up and the plants grow.
One
dahlia grower sent more than 800 dahlia tubers valued at more than $5,000.
From this donation, Dahlia Rowanated.
Late May, 2002, with this and other dahlia donations, there were enough
tubers for every child in the school to plant one. It took two days
but all of the dahlias were planted along the fence overlooking the area
where the buses drop off and pick up the kids. They were greeted
with this site when they returned in the fall. Dahlia Row became
a program with the tubers helping each grade level learn a little more
about the science of botany. The planting of dahlia row was one of
the many lessons learned along the way. The plan was to have the
sod removed in the strip along the fence and dig planting holes in the
morning before the kids came out. Then the kids would plant their
dahlia tubers and fill in the hole and mark it with a marker there were
to have filled out in their classroom. (Then in the fall they would
come back and see what the tubers had produced and pick the flowers.)
. (We were still hand digging at this point.) We cut the sod and
strip along the fence.
Summer 2002
Finally the rain stopped and the kids were able to go into the new
gardens and plant seeds. We had twelve class gardens
by this time. After the rain stopped it didn't start again until
fall. There was no water source on the hill yet. It was about a month
later that we secured funds for hoses that draped across the driveway to
the water outlets about 150' away. By this time most of the
seeds planted earlier were dead. The dahlias along the fence were
thriving, though, as were the few sweet potatoes and white potatoes we
had planted from ones sprouting in Granny's kitchen. After the hoses
were installed, and school let out we received a donation of 100 heirloom
tomato plants from a local grower. Four parent volunteers spent most
of one very hot afternoon getting the plants in one of the hill gardens.
We watered and nurtured these plants all summer with ideas of the money
we might make from selling them at a produce stand running through our
heads. They grew beautifully, but we never harvest a single tomato...
the deer got them all.
Summer 2002
One
of the major challenges for school garden programs is who takes care of
the gardens during summer vacation. The summer
program was designed with this in mind. The summer
program starts the week after school lets out. It is a family experience
with parents and children working and learning together. The two-hour classes
last for six weeks and are a balance of garden tasks, i.e. weeding, planting
and something crafty. Participants learn to press flowers,
propagating mums, building garden structures and cook with herbs among
other activities. Woodworking is almost as much a part of the summer program
as gardening. The first thing we do is build garden boxes.
We use these for lots of things including sitting on while weeding the
garden. That first year, the students from the summer program kept
the gardens going and growing. They created our first pumpkin
and gourd patches
which were a huge hit with kids, teachers and janitorial staff and built
the trellis house.
Many of these same students went on to volunteer with the program when
school started in the fall and are still an important part of the program.
During
our last session, Rita Heikenfels, a cooking teacher and herb specialists
accompanies the class to the gardens where we learn about edible herbs
and flowers as we pick them. Then we all go to the teaching kitchen
were we use the herbs and produce from the gardens to prepare a feast which
we share as a finale to our class.
2002,
Fall: When the kids returned to school in the fall, they were greeted
by hundreds of dahlias blooming as they got off their buses,
huge
sunflowers on the primary playground and lots of wild flowers
to pick on the elementary playground. When the first and second graders
came to openhouse a few days before school started they were each given
a flower to present to their new teacher.
That fall we initiated the Bouquets-on-Wheels program. Different teachers signed up each week for their classes to pick and prepare miniature bouquets that were inserted in floral water tubes. The bouquets are then delivered to the senior center and picked up by a Meals-on-Wheels volunteer to be delivered along with the meals. The next fall, 2nd grade teacher Dede Gardis took it on as a community project for her class. In addition to the bouquets they draw pictures and write notes for the recipients. We took a picture of the class and the Meals-on-Wheels folks made copies to give to the recipients so they would now who was responsible for these special gifts. The kids keep the notes and cards flowing through the winter and are making pressed flowers to cheer their new friends until spring.
In the early days of the program, Roberta realized there were funds
available through grants so she set about writing her first grant proposals.
Working with a teacher as her agent, she submitted a grant proposal to
the Greater Cincinnati Foundation which was funded. The grow lab grant
proposal called for four teachers to work on the project. Roberta
recruited two volunteers to develop the project. Anita Winning, a
former teacher and Jennifer Jennings, a pharmacist and assistant professor.
She told them what the project was about (growing herbs from seed to plant
in a new herb garden) and asked them to develop it, and they did. The grow
labs from the Greater Cincinnati Foundation grant were the catalas for
the development of a grow
lab project that led to much bigger things and grew
into a program that involved a dozen teachers by the second year..
 Granny's
Garden van is a real workhorse. The first year, before we had a barn
or corral, the van was our storage. We still use it to store tools
for the Hill Gardens because there is not other storage up there.
The kids think it's really cool that they get to sign the garden van.
We removed all but the front seats so we could have more room. In
addition to storing tools it is used for hauling lumber, topsoil, compost
and just about anything else that needs hauling. |
Before school let out for the summer ten more teachers had signed up to have a class garden in the fall. During the first spring, we developed garden activities i.e. planting (dahlias, perennials seeds), pressing, drying flowers, etc. and teachers signed up to participate. We had about a dozen classes a week coming out for various activities. In the fall, teachers who had class gardens were encouraged to come out weekly, and they did. The kids participated in every aspect of the garden process from digging the gardens and mulching the paths to planting seeds and pulling weeds. By the time the program shut down for the season, we had about 20 classes a week coming out to work in their class gardens and/or participate in other gardening activities. The program was a growing success with the teachers and students. Though she worked at the program more than full time, the challenge for Roberta, was finding enough time to meet all of the demands and volunteers to help. The problem was complicated by her own need to earn a living. She knew this had to change if the program was to continue.
Roberta met with one of the volunteers, Stephanie Sarnecki, who had been a very active as a volunteer and a willing learner. She told Stephanie her plans for the program and that she was going to seek funding to support two part-time positions and proposed she become her assistant. Stephanie enthusiastically accepted. (Stephanie was not able to participate full time until school let out in June.) Roberta spent the winter months writing grant proposals and developing plans for the garden program. One major idea that came from that winter of planning was to institute the Class Garden Coordinator Program. Each teacher with a class garden was "required" to have a garden coordinator. The coordinator is a volunteer whose job it is to arrange the garden activities under the guidance of the garden program.
Spring 2003: There was no formal coordinator training that first spring. Roberta worked with different ones as she could. It was a time of major change of direction and focus. Until now, She and her small core of volunteers worked with every class that came out. There was no need to worry about having enough tools, or who had the wheel barrel. Also, Roberta and her crew knew where everything of interest was in the gardens and had developed techniques for working effectively with twenty five to fifty kids at one time. It became apparent that the role of garden coordinator took more commitment than the average classroom volunteer who came in for a couple of hours to help students with reading or cut out shapes. Coordinators do more than show kids how to plant seeds. They plan activities, organize supplies and volunteers, plus develop appropriate projects to support what is being taught in the classroom. In addition, many are learning how to garden just one step ahead of the kids.
Roberta had written a number of grant proposals during the winter break. One, if funded, would ensure enough tools for the program but it would be mid May before the funding came through. With the influx of coordinators and new classes participating in the program, it would be impossible for the program to operate as it had the previous spring. School board member, Dr. Jim Kolp came to the rescue. He and his wife donated 50 shovels and 100 trowels to the program!
April 2003: The program was awarded a grant from The National Gardening Association which supplied about $300 worth of seeds and tools. The program was also featured in the Association's on-line publication Better Garden News. That fall we were also awarded a grant from the NGA of 300 spring bulbs to plant in the school yard.
January, 2003 Roberta received an e-mail from Paula Cirone who received the Garden Updates. Paula volunteered as a guidance counselor for Boy Scouts working to qualify for Eagle Scout. To qualify for Eagle Scout a candidate must design, organize and complete a significant community service project. It must be something that has staying power. She wondered if there might be a possibility for such a project with the garden program. This set the wheels turning. A couple of weeks later, David Neff, an Eagle Scout candidate contacted Roberta. She told him she would like a learning center in front of the primary school. As the plan evolved, it came to include a large work table and enough benches for 40-50 students, plus four bridges and an herb garden. David said he was up to the challenge and would get back to her in a few weeks with plans. A few weeks later, Peter Johnson, General Manager of the Hilton Garden Inn came to tour the gardens.
At this point there were four components. The growlab project where the classes were growing herbs. the Eagle Scout project, and the Hilton wanting to get involved with the program. We brought them all together. The Hilton purchased the material and sponsored the building of the learning center and bridges and paid for seeds, pots and soil to grow the herbs. The mimi grant from The Greater Cincinnati Foundation paid for the Grow Labs the four classes to grow the herbs. David Neff designed the table, benches and bridges and layout of the herb garden then brought in other Scouts and parents and organized the clearing of the garden area, the building of all components and spreading mulch. On May 2 we dedicated the learning center. The dedication included all of the 100 children who participated in the growlab project coming out with their teachers to plant their herbs in the garden with the help of the Boy Scouts and staff from the Hilton Garden Inn.
Modern technology has been as important to the development of the garden program as were shovels and trowels. Roberta used the internet for e-mailing seed and bulb companies requesting donations, communicating with teachers and parents through a web-based newsletter, and using her digital camera to give people an on-the-scene view of the garden program in action. Every aspect of the garden program is reflected on the garden website which supporters saw develop before their eyes. Not always perfectly presented but informative and useful none the less. Knowing nothing about web page design but realizing its value as a communications tool, Roberta set about learning enough to put up a functional page. Her web server, Fuse from Cincinnati Bell, included 10 mg of free web space. This was quickly used up with her photograph heavy publications (especially when you know she had not learned how to resize photos to reduce the space they required). To get enough space for the garden website, she asked friends who also had accounts through FUSE but did not use the free web publishing option to donate their space. The website was actually spread out over five sites.
The internet remains an important tool for the garden program. It is the primary means for communications with coordinators and teachers and used routinely to pass along training material as well as program information. It has been used to trade seeds with gardeners from across the country, information with school garden programs from around the world (resulting in on-site visits in some cases), and locate grant funding opportunities. We are in the process of developing standards based lesson plans that can be used by other schools as well as the one we work with.
Second year
Mrs.
Steiner's Class donated $260 (It was one little girl's idea
April: Granny's Garden School was sanctioned as an official site
for Clermont County Master Gardeners to spend volunteer hours.
April, last Saturday: Granny's
Spring Garden Party raised $400
May, 2003: we began developing more class gardens. This
time in the courtyard between
the two schools. We rearranged garden assignments so that
all of the 2nd grade gardens are now located in this area which is just
outside of the 2nd grade wing. About half of the classes have their
gardens outside their classroom windows.
Received a grant from International Paper for $2,000 to purchase a garden barn and general supplies.
Mrs. Zangline's class decided to create a yellow ribbon garden in front of the elementary school. They planted a bed of marigolds laid out in a bow design in an area that came to be known as the "Peace Garden." add link to article
May 31: Article in the Tempo section of the Cincinnati
Enquirer add link to article
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June 2003: We were awarded four grants from The Greater
Cincinnati Foundation ( Three mini grants ($708, $815 and $728) that included
purchasing grow labs and one for $22,440 to fund two part-time salaried
positions.
June 11: Girl Scout Troop #7551 donated a wheelbarrow to the program. add link to article
June 18: photo of family with scarecrow promoting the summer classes Loveland Herald add link to article
July, 2003: July 2, 4th of July photo of Rosemary and Sam front page of the Loveland Herald add link to article
2003 July: Invited Big Brother's and Sister's to come out and pick flowers.
Donated a dozen or so clumps of perennials from our gardens to a new Habitat home recently build in Loveland. The original plan included a class digging the plants from the school yard and transplanting them in the new garden. Due to inclement weather we went with plan b and the homeowners came to the school and under Granny's guidance dug the plants. We plan to continue donating plants to the Habitat program as new homes are built in nearby communities.
Most garden programs start with raised garden beds. We are fortunate to have decent soil because raised are much more expensive then digging a hole and planting a seed or plant. When we decided to develop the area between the driveway and the McDonald's fence to meet the demand for more class gardens, we were forced to go with raised beds. What wasn't filled with rock was ruined from years of construction abuse. With no money in the coffers we had to get creative. Price Lumber in Goshen donated the wood to build the garden boxes. We determined it would cost about $25 to fill each box with top soil. We invited people to "own" a bed. They donate $25 and a volunteer paints signs with their names on them. We built 19 raised beds that serve as class gardens for six classrooms.
Held a flea market to raise general operating funds.
2003, August:
August
5: barn installed (purchased with part of International Paper grant
money)
August: 6th photo of Granny with a mom and kid buying mums at the mum sale at openhouse. Raised $280
The spring of 2003 was a time for defining the coordinator position as we worked with the volunteers and their teachers. What the position entails varies from teacher to teacher. Six weeks in the fall and another in January. We found a way to overcome the problem of the teachers not knowing how to garden. In the process of working with the class under the coordinator's guidance, they are learning as the kids do. As they become familiar with all the grounds have to offer, are seeing ways to connect it to the curriculum. Now, as they plan for the coming year they include the gardens as part of the equation. Sometimes people just don't think. As I was walking down the hall one day in early June I overheard a teacher comment that she was on the way to the florists to buy a flower for her butterfly that had just hatched. When I asked her why she was going to buy a flower when we had thousands growing right outside the door, she was dumbfounded! She had always bought flowers when butterflies hatched. She is one of our garden teachers but her brain had not made the connection between butterflies and flowers in the gardens.
2003-Fall: We began the school year with 37 of our 50 classroom teachers having their own class gardens and 30 coordinators. We established a coordinator training program with six weekly, two-hour sessions in the fall and six more in January. Hundreds of children come out to garden each week with their classroom and garden teachers (coordinators) to participate in garden related activities.
The coordinators are given the flexibility to develop new ideas and they do. One coordinator started writing a one-page information sheet each week to send home with the kids. It told what they did in the garden class that week and what they learned. We posted them on the website so others could use them as well. She is now in charge of creating "Review Pages" for all of our subjects for next spring. Most will include a do-at-home activity and a web page to access for more information. Another coordinator worked with her class to create a reading tunnel in the class garden which is right outside of the classroom window. The entire class, with their teacher and parent volunteers spent the last day of school in their garden. They had a "Garden Party." They made newspaper hats, built the reading tunnel, planted seeds, plants and dahlia tubers and remulched the garden paths. They feasted on trays of veggies, fruit, pretzels and bagels. And they are still talking about the experience six months later.
We created Harvest Month to give the program focus and instill a sense of continuation from one school year to another. The idea is to plant in the spring (with some additional planting during the summer program) for produce to be harvested in October. Traditionally, the classrooms have a "harvest" party on the last Friday in October. The parties bear little resemblance to an actual harvest experience. Our goal was to refocus the time, energy and money spent on the parties to create memorable, fun, hands on experiences. Because of the newness of the idea and so many teachers new to the program, we laid out a blanket plan for all of the classes to follow. Due to a number of reasons, the actual produce available for the parties was limited, though there was plenty to go around of what we did have and leftovers to share with the food pantry. There was no shortage of learning experiences and fun. As with most things, some teachers bought into it 100% and others to lesser degrees. With what we learned from our first year we are even more excited and positive about the potential offered by harvest month. Principal's reflections after attending a harvest luncheon hosted by a 2nd grade class.
We started the Sweet potato Project with a donation of 350 sweet potatoes from Kroger. The entire first grade rooted the potatoes in their classrooms in the spring then planted them in the gardens before leaving for the summer. In October, as part of Harvest Month, the now 2nd graders harvested the sweet potatoes. We had such a bountiful harvest that all of the classes in both schools had the chance to dig their own sweet potatoes plus we donated two bushel baskets of leftovers to the food pantry. All of the classes also had the opportunity to pull other root crops like carrots and beets and taste such things as okra and broccoli, right off the plants. Many of the classes came out the first week, some even the first day, of school and planted lettuce. We had about a dozen varieties of lettuces in the gardens. Many of the classes had huge salads from lettuce, carrots and other vegetables they'd picked, others made vegetable soup and there were all kinds of sweet potato dishes from cooked on the grill to baked into muffins.
One teacher, Mrs. Krone, new to the district, came to Granny asking if she knew about the Journey North program. She did and was excited to hear the teacher was interested in participating in it. School children in all 50 U.S. States and 7 Canadian Provinces are tracking the arrival of spring by planting the same variety of tulip at the same depth in their school yards. As they see signs of the tulips emerging and then blooming they make regular reports to Journey North who makes the information available on the website. The project is much more than just planting lots of tulips and the learning opportunities are numerous and not limited to tulips. Granny approached the Hilton Gardens Inn about sponsoring the program to allow the entire second grade to participate. The enthusiastically agreed. Not only did they pay to buy 600 red emperor tulips for the project, they participated in the planting. Mrs. Krone and her class made a field trip to the hotel where they planted 100 of the test tulips with the help of the hotel's management and owner then they all had hot chocolate and donuts. Mrs. Krone's is the only 2nd grade class actively participating in the Journey North program this year. But all of the classes did come out to plant the tulips in the school yard test garden. Mrs. Krone is posting the results of the test and mapping the the progression of spring on a map on the wall outside her classroom for the benefit of the other classes. We anticipate we will have much wide participation next year.
One of the goals of Granny's Garden School is to secure a corporate sponsor for each of the class gardens. The Hilton Gardens Inn is one such sponsor. In addition to sponsoring the learning center built by the Eagle Scout and Journey North, we are working on an herb garden project to be located on their grounds. Spring 2004, this same class will return to the Hilton to check on the tulips and to plant an herb garden. The garden will be located along their outside dinning room near the main entrance. The herbs will be used in their restaurant and it will say on the menu that they are part of a program with Loveland City Schools. There will also be a sign on the gardens. Before school lets out for the year the class will return one more time for a brunch featuring omelets and other dishes made from the herbs they planted. We already offer sponsorship opportunities to individual families. This spring we will be launching an all out effort to attract corporate sponsors.
2003-October: Two grant proposals (written by Jane Gonzales) were funded. (Ohio Environmental Education Fund for $3512 to develop the first phase of the nature trail project and Hamilton County Enviromental Services for 1226.45 to develop a composting teaching station.
We have many volunteers who work behind the scenes. Grace, who spent the last year scouring the internet collecting information about the plants we grow. No one source, book or website, has all of the facts about any one plant. She has compiled all of the facts she could find about nearly 200 flowers and vegetables from a variety of resources into a single database. She was a new gardener, had never used a database and had baseline knowledge regarding computers. Now she is learning how to create web pages to make a page for each plant. Students will use it to get baseline information about plants. i.e. When to plant. How far apart They can use the information when designing a garden. We will also be collecting information from the students. How tall did their peas grow? How long were their cucumbers? How much did their pumpkin weigh? All of this information will be collected and made available on the website. We will use it for math and science problems. We will also have a section for photos each year of the kids that grew the biggest carrot, longest cucumber, etc. The information should be on our website by spring where other school garden programs can use it as well.
We have one volunteer whose primary job is picking bouquets that she delivers to local businesses (plus city hall, police, fire) and to our supporters. She delivers the flowers to the senior center for Meals-on-Wheels to pick up and loves to weed. Someone else picks bouquets and delivers them to the school offices, library and lunchroom. Another volunteer is in charge of making our signs and embroiders "Granny's Gardeners on our aprons." Another is taking small chairs, tables and such we gather from the curbside and turning them into pieces of art to sell at our fundraiser garden parties. We have a volunteer who is a public relations professional that is working with us to prepare a short and long-term marketing plan for the program. Another is a published author who is writing a story about the program to be submitted to national magazines. Birds & Bloom and Better Homes and Gardens have both expressed interest.
2003-November: We have a new compost learning center thanks to the efforts of a group of Girl Scouts co-lead by Jane Gonzales. The girls attend the school and take pride in their accomplishment. They built a large worktable and two long benches that will become part of the Compost Teaching Station we are developing with a grant of $1226.45 from Hamilton County Enviromental Services. We have about a dozen passive composting bins located in the gardens. This station will be used by classes for scientific study of the composting process. It will be complete with soil thermometers, magnifying glasses and other tools to facilitate study.
2003-fall: We have an old gnarled apple tree in front of the school that still produces a good crop each year but no one was noticing. As part of Harvest Month, classes visited the apple tree each picking a few apples. While standing under the tree and talking about the importance off apples, Granny cut pieces from the apples and puts them in outstretched hands. Teachers and students alike all declared this the best apple they had ever tasted! By the time we visited many of the apples had already fallen. Next year, more classes will discover the wonderful apples on the tree and will be encouraged to use them in their apple lessons in addition to tasting them. As a result of this experience we have decided to create a small orchard in front of the schools with apple, pear and peach trees. It will contain only half a dozen tree just enough for the children to see them go from flower to fruit each year.
2003-Fall: We have about 5-7 acres of undeveloped woods in back of the school property. It is hilly and includes two natural creek beds. We are in the process of developing a nature trail through the woods. Jane Gonzales is coordinating the project. The grant proposal from the Ohio Enviromental Education Fund for $3,512 will pay to build two bird blinds and for other supplies. It includes funds to pay a naturalists to assist with training the teachers and coordinators. The labor for the heavy work will be provided by laborers from the Hamilton County Probation Department and mulch for the trail is being donated by a local tree service.. We will are seeking area Boy Scouts to build two bridges over the creeks. This is phase one. Phase two will be accomplished in the fall of 2004. The second trail will include a wheelchair accessible trail in an area along the edge of the woods that also contains a meadow. We are working with Wild Ones (an organization focused on preserving and reintroducing native plants) to help identify non-native, invasive plants and provide native wildflowers to add to the environment. Our advisors also include the Ohio Division of Forestry and the Hamilton County Soil & Water Conservation District. Students will be involved in every aspect of the development of the trails once the basic path is laid. They will learn about why we want to eradicate the invasive non-native plants, help with identifying and creating markers for the trees along the trail, study erosion..
We have decided to frame all of the class gardens as the first step to dividing the gardens into 18" sections so each child has his own piece to focus on. We received another donation of lumber from Price Wood Products to use for framing the gardens. We have also networked with the City of Terrace Park which runs an EPA sanctioned leaf and grass composting center. We can have all of the compost. They have a front loader but we have to find a way to haul it. So, the search is on for someone with a really big dump truck to haul a few loads for us. Spring 2004 we will be planting in wonderfully composted soil. At the same time, we have made arrangements with the City of Loveland to dump 10 truck loads of leaves. They will be stored in an out of the way place and be ready for using the gardens by late spring.
2004, Spring:
We now have a total of 16 teachers participating in the Grow Lab Program which will start late January. Three more grant proposals for grow labs were funded by The Greater Cincinnati Foundation. We heard the Civic Garden Center was redirecting their funding and discontinuing their in-school grow lab program and were selling their barely used grow labs. With permission from TGCF we purchased ten of their labs instead of three new ones. This allowed us to expand the Grow Lab Project into a program with 16 teachers participating. Anita Winning is now our volunteer Grow Lab Program Coordinator. (Unfortunately Jennifer moved to Tennessee.) Beginning January, 2000 we will be training our coordinators on how us use the grow labs prior to the official launch of the program in mid February.
Coordinator training begins mid-January. We will focus on seed starting techniques for growing under lights as well as starting outside. The coordinators will assist with developing grade level lesson plans with projects such as growing sweetpotaotes and dahlias as the core. We will also provide training in garden related projects that can be used on rainy days.
We will focus many of our resources on developing a stronger link between the gardens and the curriculum. We are establishing comprehensive web-based lesson plans designed specifically for hands-on garden-based learning.
We have networked with Laurie Renz, an Associate Professor at Clermont
University of Cincinnati, to develop and conduct a school garden
effectiveness research project. We will seek personnel from these
same resources to assist with lesson plan development.
The natural trail will open up a whole new venue for curriculum based
learning. We will customize available lesson material to reflect
the availability of the trail.
We are starting the process of establishing Granny's Garden School as
a not for profit organization
In the past our Bouquets-on-Wheels program ceased in the summer when the kids were out of school. This year we working with a local senior center to keep it going. A volunteer will pick the flowers and take them to the center where the seniors there will prepare the bouquets. This year the two senior groups will help Granny's Gardeners raise funds for the school garden program. Classes will pick flowers that will be delivered to the senior centers. The seniors will prepare the flowers and place them in phone books to press. A few weeks later when the flowers are pressed and dry, they will use the flowers to create pictures which will be sold at the garden parties and, perhaps, on E-Bay.
We continue to actively recruit volunteers from
outside the school parent pool. We have been designated as official
site for Master Gardeners from Clermont County to spend their required
50 community service hours. We are also attracting high school juniors
and seniors from our own and nearby high schools who have to volunteer
50 or more to graduate. We have developed a working relationship
with both the Clermont and Hamilton County Probation Departments (loveland
straddles three counties). They come on Sunday's with crews made
up of working people who have been sentenced to community service.
They donated 360 man hours in 2003.
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curriculum connections
The teachers were not always sure of how to
work the garden activities into the lesson plans. Most are not
gardeners and they do not have time in their busy schedules for recreating
the lesson plan wheel. However, they quickly saw the potential of
the hands on learning and, for the most part, were willing to give it a
try. To some, just getting the kids outside and turned on to nature
made it a worthwhile effort. This is a universal problem. I
recently communicated with Martha Critchlow with Government Department
for Education and Skills in London, England. She is the head of the
Growing
Schools Programme a garden focused teaching program they have
been developing for two years that is scheduled to launch in 2004.
Regarding the development of the program, she wrote "We found first hand,
active learning was an invaluable, part of the learning process for most
pupils; but while many schools were keen to use the outdoor classroom,
there were significant barriers that needed to be addressed first. "Lack
of training and confidence among teachers and no time to plan creative
outdoor lessons in place of standard classroom learning. A further problem
schools face is access to information relating to outdoor learning. It
is not that the information doesn't exist, but rather that there is so
much material and no indication of quality, it’s like looking for a sharp
needle in a hay stack of blunt ones."
Although our teachers have been very willing to participate in the program even our most supportive have not had time to make the full connection. There are many excellent lesson plans such as Journey North, The Great Plant Escape and the Junior Master Gardener manual for teaching plant science to elementary children. Though all refer to growing in the garden, they are not actually anchored there. They straddle the line so they can be used by students who do no have access to gardens. They do not address the fact that you may go out to plant beans in the garden but you may end up spending most of you time studying entomology when someone spots a nest of praying mantis emerging. On the way to our garden to plant beans, even as we walk, we talk about what we see going on in the other gardens as we pass. We cannot always stop to investigate but they learn to observe. What they observe is written in their journal along with how top plant a bean. We want to maximize the time in the gardens to make cross curricula connections wherever possible. We teach the requirements of the curriculum, but we go beyond this focus by offering a team of experiences which anchor education in the real world. With two years of in-the-field experience we know what works and what only looks good on paper.
We have tried a number of avenues for fundraising, some we will not repeat and few are evolving to become signature events. The events offer activities as varied as our gardens. We have many talented artists in the area that are garden supporters, so we feature area artists selling their wares. This year we are contacting the high school art departments in adjoining communities to invite the kids to show and sell at our parties. One of our most popular features has been Paint-a-Pot. (We acquired 300 clay pots from a green house that was being torn down). We provide quick drying paints, brushes and aprons and people paint their own pot for $2. This spring we are expanding this feature into what we are calling Granny's Craft Room which will include a variety of craft making activities using donated, found and natural materials. We sponsor a Tailgate Market where we invite people to load up their vehicles with things to sell then find a spot in the parking lot and set up shop. At the spring party we sell a Spoon-Full-of-Seeds, seeds from open pollinated plants in the school gardens sold for 25 cents a spoon full. At the fall party we offer Build-a-Scarecrow $3 (we provide straw and frames and people bring their own clothes and accessories). We invite a 4-H group and a Girl and Boy Scout troop to sell snacks and drinks. We do not charge a fee for the Tailgate Market and a nominal $5 fee to the artists. These are all family friendly, fun little things designed to bring people in for the main events and to support other organizations who have supported ours.
The main attractions: Our greatest fundraising success has been with old fashion flea markets (known as Granny's Pass-Alongs). So we are incorporating selling donated items into both events. People not interested in selling at the Tailgate Market (the majority in our community) are invited to donate usable items to be sold in "Granny's Pass-Alongs," The second attraction at Granny's Spring Garden Party (last Saturday in April) is the perennial exchange and plant sale. The second attraction at Granny's Fall Garden Party (first Sunday in October) is gourds and mums and biennials. The plants are provided by Blooms & Berries, a small, growing local nursery that provides us the plants on consignment at a 40% discount. We established a relationship with them when we initiated our most successful fundraiser to date, selling potted mums. Fall 2003 we sold them only at the primary and elementary schools. Next fall we will sell them through all of the schools in the district. In their initial stages these fund raisers only brought in a total of $2,900 in 2003. We are confident that with the proper attention, (planning, organizing and marketing) we can at least triple that amount in 2004. 2003 was a year of major growth and change in the program that left little time volunteer resources to develop this important area to it's fullest potential. This year we have our plans in place and volunteer event planners for each event plus two years of experience.
We have such an abundance of flowers that even when school is in session and the kids are picking flowers there are many many left. One of the reasons we have such an abundance, in addition to the fact that we have a lot of plants is that we keep the flowers picked. Flowers can be kept picked by picking bouquets of deadheading. We prefer the bouquet method. Another fundraising activity that is picking up speed is Pick-a-Bouquet. People can come into the gardens and pick a bouquet of two dozen flowers (excluding sunflowers) for $5.00. In the past we have not had set hours and it is catch us there as they could and we did not publicity past a sign in front of the school, but, it has been getting a lot of word-of-mouth advertising. This spring and summer we plan to make it more assessable and feature it in our marketing plans.
In addition to the flea markets associated with the garden parties, we have a third, stand alone, flea market in July. We want the people in our community to think of the garden program when they have things to "pass along," especially children's clothing. People are already calling us, routinely, to ask if we can use this or that for the gardens. We are known as a program that pinches pennies and recycles everything and accomplishes great feats on little money. .
We are in the beginning stage of investigating
the possibility of raising funds by selling things on E-bay. We are
establishing a program with two senior groups that will give them meaningful
projects to do and help us raise
funds for the school garden program. Classes
will pick flowers that will be delivered to the senior centers. The
seniors will prepare the flowers and place them in phone books to press.
A few weeks later when the flowers are pressed and dry, they will use the
flowers to create pictures. Also, we have a volunteer who takes small
items we gather from the curbside and turning them into pieces of art.
Plus, at flea markets you always get a few thing that are worth more than
flea market prices. Our original plan was to sell things at the garden
parties. It would appear at first glance, though, that a store on
E-Bay would provide us a much broader market and the possibility of raising
some significant funds.
We are in the process of bringing together local garden clubs, growers and other enviromental educators to form a coalition to support the development of garden based education programs on the grounds of other schools in the area. We do not anticipate duplicating the full expanse of our program, rather pieces of it as fits the interests of individual schools. We are beginning by bringing together the resources we have tapped into in the development of our program and with their help compiling a list of other public and private organizations that share our goals. We have already become aware of individual garden programs that have come and gone or are struggling along in our area. There are many resources (material and financial) going to waste because the people who need them do not know they are available. And, there are plants and other resources being dumped in the landfill because small growers did not realize they could get full retail value by donating to a garden program plus the positive publicity. Resource we have developed, like our website, can be utilized by other programs. In addition, with their input, we will improve our website over time.
2004 Spring: We are in the process of boxing all of the gardens. In the beginning, we lay each 10' x 20' plot out with a path down the middle then the kids dug in the soil, plant seeds and pulled weeds as a group. When they come out to garden this spring, in each class garden there will be four wood boxes each large enough for six children to have 18" of garden space. Their first task will be to measure the boxes and determine how to divide the space so each class member will have an 18'". We decided to go this route after seeing how quickly kids too ownership of a garden spot, even after working there only one time.
Our school district is one of the districts in Hamilton County that was chosen to participate in a program to improve teachers skills for teaching math. One of our garden teachers is writing a grant proposal that if funded would fund the purchase of set of Palm Pilots with a built in digital cameras which would be shared by four 2nd -3 rd grade classes. We are very excited about the possibilities this opens up for the study of math in general and specifically as it relates to the gardens. It's a natural compliment to our dahlia research project and for the kids to track the activity in their individual garden plots.
In addition to traditional subjects, we utilize the gardens to teach life lessons such has how to plan a project and execute the plan. For example: four of our classes are using a grow lab to grow herbs. Some of the herbs will be planted in our new herb garden, the rest will be sold at our perennial exchange. The kids are surveying their families and neighbors to determine which herbs their potential customers might buy. They will use this information to select the ten most popular which they will grow. They will determine how much soil, pots, and such they will need. Then, they will research the cost of supplies and use that information to determine how much to charge for their plants. They will "borrow" the start up money from the garden program to fund their project and pay back the loan, with interest, after the sale. As a group, they will determine what to do with their earnings.
The internet remains an important tool for the garden program. It is the primary means for communications with coordinators and teachers and used routinely to pass along training material as well as program information. It has been used to trade seeds with gardeners from across the country, information with school garden programs from around the world (resulting in on-site visits in some cases), and locate grant funding opportunities. Our own website came about because we needed a practical, easy means to access all of the material we were collecting and developing. With everything available on the website classroom and garden teachers can easily access material at home and at school.
The school garden website is only in the beginning stage of it's potential. Our goal for 2004 is to have a webpage for each crop we grow i.e. sunflowers, sweet potatoes, beans. The webpage will actually be five web pages ... one for each grade K-4.. Each will include grade appropriate, cross curriculum information about the crop. Other components of each page will be appropriate photographs of the plant in different stages (taken by students). Groups of students will pick an individual plant and become an experts on their plant. Using a database one of our volunteers is creating, plus other internet links we will provide, they will research the history of their plant and it's growing habits, how it has impacted the human social structure in the past and today. They will research what their plant needs to grow and plant seeds in the gardens. The information they gather about their plant will become part of a database of garden plants that students will add to each year. It will, of course, be on the website for other schools to access as well.
Granny's Gardeners have opened the walls
of the schools into the gardens where students can study science, math,
language and art while tending their carrots and green beans and picking
bouquets. Along the way they learn how and why plants are important
to humans and why they should care about our environment. They understand
why they need to know math because they use it to measure their garden
plot, decide what to plant where and how deep and see who has the tallest
basil plant. When all is said and done, not only are they smarter
and wiser, they are healthier from the exercise and making better food
choices because they decided they like broccoli after tasting it in the
garden.
 The
Trellis House was built by the students in the first summer garden
program. It is made of strips of wood that are the leftovers from
making custom wine cellars. |
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