Materials List for After-School Garden Club

Seeds

• Organic seeds (Carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, pickling cucumbers, beans, peppers, strawberries, basil, collard greens and dinasour kale, onions, flowers, sunflowers, watermelon, flowers)
• Sources: We purchase reliable sources of non-gmo &/or Organic seeds: 
• Johnny's Seeds - http://www.johnnyseeds.org
• Seed Savers Exchange - http://www.seedsavers.org 
• Local Heirloom Seed Swaps - ask around for one in your area, or start one!
• Local Harvest: http://www.localharvest.org

Office Supplies & Craft Supplies

• Large flip chart paper
• Markers (flip charts & permanent)
• Pencils
• Colored Pencils (For making field notes)
• Popsicle Sticks (large) for labeling
• Stencils of plants, flowers, trees, fruits, etc- anything that might look gardeny - perhaps a nature stencil set (for decorating & making signage)

Hardware Store (Garden Section)

• 3 Shovels
• 2 Large rakes
• 6 Hand shovels/trowels
• 4 Hand rakes
• 1 Large Roll of Twine/Baling Twine
• 1 Roll of Chicken Wire (for the top of the compost bin)
• 3 Large Watering cans (Shower head-type)
• 2 Small (single stream, houseplant-type) Watering Cans
• Gloves (with rubber coating on palms (2) 5-packs
• 1 Big bottle of Sunscreen
• Non-VOC Paints (Non-toxic for outdoor use, one gallon each of red, yellow, blue, black and white - all should be the same brand, stick to bright colors)
• Wooden Signs (These could be pine-boards, approx. 12" x 24" or another shape/size - that we can attached to raised beds - we'd need to make at least one sign for the garden name)
• 8 Tomato Cages
• Bamboo Stakes (4 packs of 5)
• 2-3 Large Plastic Storage Bins with lids
• (Ideal Situation...) 1 smallish outdoor Plastic Storage Unit w/lock

Local Home & Garden Store

• Organic Potting soil- 1 large bag (about $11 each)
• Seed Starting trays (open flats &/or divided flats)

Raised Beds

• In our area, we have a community organization that puts together raised bed kits. For our time-frame and purposes, it is easiest to purchase four 4x4-foot raised bed kits and place them in a grid or diamond pattern at our site. Kits cost about $30-$40 each.
  

A possible layout of 4 raised beds

Pictured above: Two 4x4 raised bed kits, assembled.
One is covered with a homemade mini-hoop for season extension.

Other

• Compost/Soil - We estimate we'd need about 4 cubic yards to fill the four raised beds, and 1 full size pickup truck should hold about 2.5 cubic yards  - so we would need to make 2 trips to the compost center. Each Cubic yard costs $7 at the Ann Arbor site.
• http://www.soilbuildingsystems.com/CubicYard.php
• $7/cubic yard up to 9 yards per truck load
  http://www.a2gov.org/government/publicservices/fieldoperations/solidwasteunit/Pages/CompostSales.aspx
• Free! Mulch-woodchips - The city gives these away mulch for free and even delivers for free. We just need to contact them about 1 week before delivery.
  
  
• Free! 4 Wooden pallets - we will re-purpose these to create our compost bin (these can be painted so they look nice) - we just need to find them!

D-Town Farm (Detroit): Compost Bin

 

D-Town Farm Raised Bed made of Recycled Lumber (Detroit)

Giving Garden (Ypsilanti): Compost Bin made of Pallets & Upcycled Wire Shelving

 Examples of Signage at D-Town Farm (Detroit)

Day One: Intro to Garden Club

the first day we met the kids
was actually set up to be three rotating sessions. Three of the six clubs offered during the week were there with a short activity, so the kids could try out different things and make an informed decision about which clubs they wanted to join. 

Our activity employed soil-blocking with yogurt cups to show the kids how to start seeds and give them a taste (figuratively) of the kinds of veggies, flowers, and fruits we'd be growing. 

We started:

Bi-color Sweet Corn
Onions
Jalapeños
Larkspur
Calendula

Kale & others...

All of our seeds come from Johnny's Seed Company, Seeds of Change, and Seed Savers Exchange.

Almost every kid seemed to enjoy Garden Club; even the squeamish and dirt-shy got their hands in the potting soil. They asked questions and made statements like: 

"Are there worms in here?"
"Could we get worms?"
"Oh! It's wet!"
"This is easy!"

One particular boy had lots of great things to say (I'm paraphrasing):

[Elbows deep in the potting soil] "This smells good! It smells like nature!"

"This is like food!"

[Later, when he was helping make extra soil blocks] "If we grew corn here, then instead of my mom going to the grocery store, I could just bring some home for dinner!


[Even later...] "We could grow extra food and give it to charity!"

Although there are mountains of methods for starting a gardening and food justice program at any school, we can identify a few shared purposes:

1. [Re]Connecting with and understanding food systems and the process of growing. Each student and teacher involved in school-gardening will probably find different places to begin connecting or re-connecting with food systems, but the ultimate goal is to map the local and global food system in which you and your school/community are situated, and to find a sense of each individuals' role in that system. Also, to begin to question, "is this a just system?" "Who benefits from it and who is marginalized?"
   
   
2. Teaching and learning a set of skills that are vital to the sustainability of ecological communities. These skills go beyond the practical skills of growing, tending and harvesting to include collaboration, dialogue, designing with community and sustainability in mind, and problem-solving (or innovating when challenged with limitations). I have begun the process of learning about permaculture/bio-diverse gardening, and I find that there are many principles that overlap with those of EcoJustice education and Place-Based Education.
   
   
3. Providing the opportunities for participants to foster a love for and disposition of responsiveness to their place. The school garden opens everyone involved to experience and discover knowledge about the place in which they live. Soil is a living history - what has grown and will grow in it tells a story of our place that we might otherwise never be aware of. Additionally, when you begin to grow food, you begin to find other people who grow food, people who eat, and cook, and everyone has stories, recipes, opinions, skills, and experiences to share. Just by attending the local market and shaking the hand of a vendor and saying, "We are starting a garden at our school" you begin to make a connection which opens you up to the culture of agriculture.

There are some other consequences for educators who become involved school gardening. We are likely to experience:

1. A re-shaping our definition of what it is to learn and teach at a school.
2. Practicing collaboration in a way that includes the land as both a teacher and partner.
3. A slower pace of working, learning, and teaching.
4. A shift in focus toward process and problem-solving, rather than only on quantifiable results.
5. A difference in our capacity to listen, observation, and dialogue with other people and with natural systems.

I'll be exploring these opportunities and ideas further in future posts and in the curriculum I am creating for my Master's project. I hope you enjoy Youth Gardening Weekly and I look forward to any feedback you have for me or my co-contributor Lisa. 

peas,
lindsey