Top 10 Tips for Urban School Gardens

Author: William Moss

Teaching is my vocation; nature and gardening are my passions. I've been fortunate enough to combine these interests in many projects, such as working with teens and adults at the Chicago Botanic Garden, teaching about landscape design on Discovery's Channel's Rally Round the House and Town Haul, and now as an urban gardening expert with the National Gardening Association. Find more urban gardening advice here

NGA's urban gardening guru, William Moss, shares his top tips for school gardens.

1. Choose interesting, fun plants that offer colorful flowers or tasty treats. The appeal of growing such plants sparks children's curiosity and sense of wonder. Once they're attracted to plants, you can connect students' real life experiences to just about any classroom subject. Don’t expect kids to make these connections on their own. It is up to you to relate the students’ practical experiences to academic content at the appropriate level of understanding.

2. Grow dwarf varieties of plants to maximize your outdoor space. Diminutive versions fruit trees and shrubs such as apple, peach, and blueberry make it possible to grow fruits even in small urban gardens. Their compact roots make them ideal for containers. Small-stature plants are a great way to keep the garden in scale for young children.

3. Use vertical space. If you have a fence or railing, or a wall that will support a trellis, grow up! Green the vertical surface with beautiful vines, like morning glories, pole beans, and sweet peas. These living fences soften the urban landscape, are effective screens, and can increase the crop production area.

4. Amend your soil. Urban soils are usually a mix of construction debris, random trash, and (if you are lucky) a little topsoil. Amending the soil with organic matter adds nutrients, buffers against toxins, and improves soil tilth. This is a great task for junior high and high schoolers. Double-digging and tilling are physical jobs that let kids burn off steam. This is also a great opportunity for science experiments. Students can test the soil, detect nutrient deficiencies, and then determine the proper amendments and methods for remediation.

5. Start a composting program. Composting gives kids a concrete way to positively affect their environment. Have students bring acceptable kitchen scraps and plant debris to a class or school compost pile/bin. Incorporate the finished compost into the school garden and explain how during decomposition the nutrients from the scraps are converted into forms usable by plants. Composting provides opportunities for science experiments. Students can observe and measure decomposition rates, aerobic vs. anaerobic reactions, gas formation, physical changes, etc. Mathematics teachers can use composting to demonstrate real-life calculations, such as how much money the school saves by making its own compost. (Consider both the money saved in trash hauling and the fertilizer equivalent of the compost.) Determine how much compost the average family could make in a year, and how much greenhouse gas is produced from the average landfill containing table scraps and organic matter from an average community.

6. Water properly. Apply water slowly and thoroughly, letting water soak in deeply. If possible, water in the early morning or late afternoon. If you water during the hottest part of the day, a great deal of water may be lost to evaporation. Watering in the evening means foliage may stay wet into the night, encouraging diseases.

7. Fertilize during the growing season. Annuals, vegetables, and container plants need regular applications throughout the summer to perform their best. Use grade-level-appropriate explanations and lessons about plant nutrients. For instance, for kindergartners it’s simply “giving plants their vitamins,” but high school students can learn the general functions of all 17 essential elements (C, H, O, N, P, K, Ca, S, Mg, Fe, B, Na, Cu, Zn, Mn, Cl, and Mo).

8. Apply mulch to the garden to conserve water, prevent erosion, add nutrients, moderate soil temperatures, and reduce weeds. Choose a type (wood chips, shredded bark, straw, cocoa hulls, seashells, pine needles, compost) that suits the age of the students as well as the style of the garden.

9. Choose the right growing mix for containers: a lightweight, sterile soil mix with plenty of organic matter. To reduce the weight of large containers place Better-Than-Rocks filler and/or Upsy Daisy circles in the bottom of the pot. Or place empty one- or two-liter plastic soda bottles in the container before adding soil.

10. Include artwork in the garden. Allow time in art class for students to add signs, murals, sculptures, abstract pieces, and decorations. This personalizes the garden gives kids a feeling of shared control and ownership.

And don’t forget to take field trips to local gardens, arboreta, and state parks throughout the year to get ideas and inspiration. Many public gardens offer programs, educational materials, and resources for school gardens.