Twice a week at Malcom Elementary School in Laguna Niguel, children like Heather Smith can’t wait to skip their lunchtime recess.
Instead of a game of four square or basketball on the playground, they stream into their school’s garden, push up their sleeves and get to work.
On this Thursday in late fall, that work is thinning and transplanting lettuce seedlings and planting carrot and radish seeds in the ground. Some kids scurry around on a “botany scavenger hunt,” using magnifying glasses to examine leaves’ shapes and characteristics.
Malcom Elementary was one of the first schools to participate in the Grow Your Own! organic garden program through the nonprofit Ecology Center (theecologycenter.org) in San Juan Capistrano.
Since 2012, the Grow Your Own! program has expanded to serve 30 area schools, and now receives more applications than it can accept. The Ecology Center consults with schools about garden design and provides guidance about what to plant. The organization also offers curriculum development and ongoing training for teachers and garden volunteers.
“I like being in nature,” said Heather, a fourth-grade student at Malcom. “I just like being in the garden. It’s important for kids to learn how things grow and how they change. A book is interesting, but if you can read and see it in person, it’s better.”
Nearby, Jacqui Neuharth, the parent volunteer who oversees the school’s Garden Ambassadors program, ticks off the benefits of getting children outside to work with plants: It calms them down. It offers real-life experience in math (“like measuring the growth of seedlings over time”) and science (“like the life cycles of a butterfly”). And, she adds, it teaches them healthy eating habits.
“It’s amazing what kids will eat if they grow it themselves,” Neuharth said, pointing out the lemon sorrel that Malcom’s gardeners sometimes snack on. “There’s nothing better than watching them pull up carrots, wash them off and eat them.”
The school garden movement
The Ecology Center offers monthly training to educators, which includes practical advice about establishing garden rules and routines, as well as tips about kids’ favorite activities such as scavenger hunts, critter walks, measuring and recording, journaling, and observing and drawing what they see.
Ecology Center staff members say they view themselves as part of a larger movement taking root among teachers and families who see school gardens as a great tool for teaching children.
“I don’t know of a school garden movement that’s bigger historically than what’s happening today. People are recognizing that simply learning in the classroom isn’t enough. That connection to the outdoors is essential to developing a whole education,” said Meg Hiesinger, who directs the Grow Your Own! program.
In 2010, the American Heart Association established a teaching gardens program with the goal of improving eating habits and cardiovascular health. The program operates more than 300 gardens nationwide, including 40 across Southern California. In Orange County, it has gardens at 14 schools in Garden Grove, Anaheim and Santa Ana.
The Heart Association has developed 35 garden-based lesson plans serving kindergarten through fifth grade, which it shares with educators, and maintains an online Garden Community (gardencommunity.heart .org) to answer questions and connect parents and teachers with resources.
Healthy food and problem-solving skills
“Within Orange County, as more schools build school gardens, other schools gain an interest. We’re seeing it grow, figuratively and literally,” said Nora Stewart, teaching gardens coordinator for the Heart Association.
Susan Shevlin, a volunteer with the University of California’s Cooperative Extension Master Gardener program (uccemg.com), works with the Heart Association’s Teaching Garden schools.
The Master Gardener program’s mission is to provide the public with research-based information about home horticulture and pest management. The program’s volunteers work with the Heart Association, schools, churches and youth groups to cultivate a new generation of home gardeners.
“It’s a great way to get kids thinking about where their food comes from and how science and math work in the garden,” said Shevlin, a former accounting professor who now is a full-time volunteer. “Kids learn problem-solving skills that they might not otherwise have to learn.”
Shevlin says children are also interested to learn about the “three sisters” garden, how American Indians planted corn, beans and squash together in a sustainable way that kept soil fertile while providing a healthy diet.
Teachers or parents who want to build a new garden at their school or revive a neglected one can request a master gardener visit their site to offer advice, or speak at a workshop, all at no cost to schools, Shevlin says. The program also offers full-day Saturday workshops on creating and sustaining gardens geared toward youths.
As for a home-based project to get kids excited, Shevlin recommends a family start with a big pot full of good garden compost and some radish seeds.
“Radishes will grow in 21 days, while carrots take almost three months to grow. That can feel like a long time for a child to wait,” Shevlin said.
Once the weather grows warmer (around March or April), she recommends planting a cherry tomato plant. “They grow quickly, and the tomatoes are candy-like for kids, almost like little jewel veggies.”
Back at Malcom Elementary, third-grader Lucas Aga, 8, said he likes to spend his lunch hour in the garden, mostly just because “it’s fun.”
Last year, garden volunteer Neuharth enlisted the help of Lucas and his classmates to research some of the pests that were damaging crops and propose ways to keep them out of the garden.
“I was in the rabbit group,” Lucas said.
He and his group measured the garden’s fences, researched how high rabbits can jump (4-6 feet), and learned that they are small enough to squeeze through the holes in the chain-link fence.
His second-grade group tried to design a way to humanely trap rabbits, he said, because “we want to stop the rabbits from eating our plants, but we like the rabbits for some things.”
Elisa Slee, the second-grade teacher whose class undertook the garden pest investigation, said it really engaged her students. The group tasked with preventing slug and snail damage reported that crushed eggshells can deter them, while the gopher group considered whether peppermint oil would deter that pest, she said.
“It was such a fun experience, and it had meaning to them because they were really invested in it,” Slee said.
Added Neuharth, “They were all terribly enthusiastic because I was their client, and it was a real-world problem.”
Nearby, third-grader Baron Banuelos, 8, sat quietly, sorting lettuce seedlings by discarding the smallest sprouts in a pan. “The littlest ones are going to take up more nutrition, so none of them could get big,” he explained.
So why does Baron forgo lunchtime recess to get his hands dirty in the garden?
“The plants,” he said. “Because I like nature a lot.”
