5/2/22 - Maxfield School has had a food garden at the front of the school for years with dedicated community members working with staff to connect students to where their food comes from.  

With the merging with Jackson Elementary next year, we will transition this space to be a flower garden for people and pollinators that brings joy and pride to our school.  We look forward to planning for a food garden outdoor classroom on the other side of our building where there is more space and less traffic.  

Grow Our Own is partnering with Global Arts Plus Lower to bring back the garden beds lost during recent renovations to the building and campus.  The garden beds will go along the school, replacing the old lilac bushes at the front of the building.  The edible garden will be constructed of attractive prefabricated metal raised beds  that will last a long time.  They are at a good height for our young scholars to be able to see and work with the vegetables they will be growing.  We are looking forward to having produce served in the cafeteria at the first opportunity! 

Nokomis South teachers and students are excited to have gardens for instruction!  In Spring 2021, Grow Our Own advised on how to renovate their interior courtyard and paired them up with a Garden Partner who could become familiar with the school, work alongside, and answer questions as they arise. We also started an extensive survey to identify where and how to put a garden in their campus.  Water access, drainage, and potential for lawn degradation steered us to one site where garden beds could go. We’re excited to see how students will get hands on experience in growing food! 

Focus Beyond's students will install an edible garden behind the school to grow a garden business.  Students will learn valuable skills in growing vegetables, harvesting and preparing them for market, not to mention how to cook these for themselves to keep the bodies and minds sharp.  Students will prepare 4 large stock tanks to grow vegetables and build a wash station for hands and vegetables! Last year, SPPS Farm to School Interns and Humboldt FFA students built a 3-stall compost bin which was put into place late 2021.

EXPO has a rich history of school gardens at their school, with food growing spaces along the front of the building.  As with all gardens, the garden had come to the point where it needed a renovation and a redesign.  With the help of Grow Our Own, EXPO developed a garden design with input from families and staff and proposed it to Planning. The PTA funded the project and has worked with the Outdoor Educator in charge to make the installation a family-friendly event. 

Two interior courtyards are adjacent to the PreK and Kindergarten classes.  Staff were interested in redesigning the courtyards into a sensory and calming space with sensory plants that provide tactile, aromatic, and visual engagement to help students reset as needed.  With the help of Grow Our Own, staff proposed, designed, prepared the courtyards and installed the new garden beds.  Raised beds were made of right-sized stock tanks and a small mounded garden space for non-edible plants.  With this success of the courtyards, the school community is now planning for a Garden Classroom on the school campus with seating, raised beds for growing food, and a washing station for hands and vegetables.  Dayton’s Bluff is adjacent to the Dayton’s Bluff Park Recreation Center and usually has summer programming.

7/16/21 -- Parkway Montessori and Community Middle School established a garden years ago to bring a hands-on learning experience to students about where food comes from and get involved in growing it themselves.  It is a large garden that were installed before School Garden Standards were established.  In the spring, we met with the staff to listen to what they would like for their garden, and discuss how we can rehabilitate it  in conjunction with our pilot SPPS Farm To School Internship.  We removed the large low beds that were difficult to maintain and did not meet the standard for food growing, and another bed that we couldn't fix.  Afterwards, we planted the rest of the beds, and seeded the pathways and cleared areas with grass seed.  

The Revitalization of Parkway School Garden: a student blog post about the work done at Parkway's school garden by our 2020 internship program

July 2021 -- As part of the SPPS Farm To School Internship, the Agricultural Education instructors, Nutrition Services, students and interns constructed a garden outside of the AgEd area for learning and service to the community for years to come.  The original garden was removed for renovation and construction of the school.  "We are so happy to have our learning space back again," says Brad Novacheck, Humboldt AgEd instructor.  "Hands-on learning reenforces and deepens classroom learning.  Having this space, means our students can experiment with growing techniques and develop community service projects." says Andrea Nthole, Humboldt AgEd Instructor.  Interns also worked on the Parkway Middle School Garden, and collaborated to develop the first Crop Reference Webpages and the Plant tags linked to them.  

Humboldt Learning Garden: The Magic of Gardening: A student blog post about Humboldt Learning Garden and 2021 internship program

Tractors: Not Just for Farms --  a post about tractor training for the Farm to School Interns

Students formed a student-led garden group and pitched for space to have a school garden.  We worked with them to identify a good spot and to identify potential issues.  Ultimately, we worked with them to treat the site similar to a community garden – a garden run by the students to meet the needs of their community.  After review by Planning, Grow Our Own then provided the supplies for a pop-up garden so students could start putting the garden together. 

AVID teachers Ms Littlewolf and Ms Power-Theisen approached Grow Our Own to start growing produce and herbs with their students as there was such a strong interest in getting hands dirty, learning how to grow food and to how to cook with the harvest.  There was also sufficient apprehension about whether it would work or not, so Grow Our Own brought them the materials for pop-up gardens to go in an interior courtyard of the school and paired them up with one of our Garden Partners who could help them at every step.   Despite the intense heat and lack of rain, students were greeted with pumpkins and a few hardy veggies that managed to make it until September! 

Being a year-round school, Crossroads has the unique opportunity for students to be present for their garden during the growing season.  Over the years, they grew an extensive school garden with a garden bed for nearly every class!  As is the case with every garden at some point, it was time for a renovation. During the early days of the pandemic in 2020, Facilities kindly removed the garden beds and gave Crossroads a chance to redesign their garden with a clean slate.  In the interim, Grow Our Own provided “pop-up” or temporary school garden beds for the students, staff and families at the school so they could continue to grow produce while engaging staff and families in the redesign.   

LEAP serves newly immigrated high school students and the garden was the perfect fit for academic enrichment as well as community building.  The garden was planted with a wide variety of plants that reflect the richness and wealth of language, culture and cuisine! Four large stock tanks were installed early spring 2021, and were painted and planted by students. Humboldt High FFA students constructed a 2-stall compost bin that was put into place late 2021.  LEAP students welcomed family, staff and friends to see their new garden in a celebratory open house that included the adjacent rain garden. 

Students harvested many pounds of produce in the fall our first year and used the gardens to complete scientific questioning projects that include evaluating soil temperatures for spring harvest and growing seedlings for the new season.