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How to Plan and Prepare for Your School Garden
The popularity of school gardening continues to rise today. This is because it has many advantages to both the school itself and the children. Deciding to take this project is no easy task but rest assured, the outcome will make your time and effort worthwhile!
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The Benefits of School Gardens
Letting your students participate in your school garden project provides many benefits. This is why it’s really helpful that you let each one of them play a role in the project. Some of these benefits are the following:
- School gardening teaches students the proper way to grow and harvest food, which is an essential skill each person should have.
- Improves the students’ performance in Science.
- Helps students obtain a great sense of responsibility and community.
- Helps them appreciate nature.
- Improves skills and behavior inside the classroom.
- Addresses the different learning styles of children.
Awesome Tips for School Gardening
Since a school garden is an essential helpful project for both the school and children, it’s best that you do it properly. It may seem like a simple task, but it could become challenging if not planned right. Here are some tips that will help you make your project go smoothly.
1. Check With the School First
Before you start planning, you need to get the school’s approval first. You’ll have to submit your case to the concerned parties, like the principal, school administrators, and sponsors for the project. Make a strong case of how a school garden could be beneficial for the entire school.
Schedule an appointment and provide a detailed presentation. It’s important that you highlight the benefits but make sure you also clearly discuss the nature of the project and its long-term goals. To make a stronger case, you can ask other teachers, parents, and other community members to help you out on the presentation for better chances of convincing the school.
2. Choose the Best Site
Once the school grants you approval, you need to start working immediately. Your first step is choosing the school garden’s site. The key factors that will help you choose the location will include accessibility, space, and type of soil.
You should also consider whether the plants you will grow will have good access to sunlight and whether there is a water source nearby. These factors are essential for the garden’s proper development.
3. Come Up With Your Garden Design
After deciding on the location, the next step is to make a garden design. Carefully think about what garden type you want to make. Think about its size, the types of plants and flowers you want to grow, whether you want to create raised beds or use containers, etc.
Discuss with administrators, parents, and students regarding the garden design so all of you can brainstorm and come up with the perfect garden type ideal for the school. When planning, also include other priorities, like soil preparation and garden maintenance that includes weeding, watering, and waste reduction.
4. Choose What You’re Going to Plant
When deciding what plants to include in your school garden, it’s highly recommended that you consult with your local officials or other helpful parties in helping you choose plants that suit your area’s climate.
Other factors you have to consider is the plants’ size and maintenance needs. Aside from flowers and plants, it’s also nice if you include herbs and vegetables in your garden.
5. Have the Right Garden Equipment
Even before you can start planting, you’ll need to ready first your garden site. Prepping up alone will require a lot of work so it would really help if you have the right garden equipment.
For instance, if there are too many trees, you can either hire professionals to remove them or you can use a woodcutter, which is a more efficient option. Also, cleaning up the site will involve getting rid and transporting of tree branches, huge rocks, and lots and lots of dirt. This is quite tiring so using Austter Mini Dumpers will really help.
6. Plan in Advance for Each Season
Regardless of what plants you’ll grow in the garden, it’s essential that you plan in advance to prepare for the next season. After that, you need to decide whether you’ll buy the plants or grow them firsthand by planting seeds. If you decide to grow your own, you need to take note that a lot of plants require to be grown indoors first for a few weeks.
You can find efficient resources to control your budget. For example, you can deliver letters to the parents asking for donations like used gloves and gardening tools. You can also ask students to volunteer to help you in maintaining the garden.
7. Ready the Soil
If you choose to directly plant in the soil, you should have tested it before and make sure that it’s suitable for gardening. After confirming, you need to prep it up for planting. If it wasn’t used for a long period, it’s best that you till it.
You can choose to do this manually or with the assistance of gardening equipment. Be careful when tilling to avoid overdoing it. Make sure to do this task close to your planting schedule so the soil remains broken when you start planting.
8. Keep Learning
Once you’re done with the planning and prepping, it’s time that you finally plant in your garden. After than that, you should come up with a maintenance schedule for watering, removing weeds, cleaning, and other tasks.
Don’t be discouraged if you meet a few bumps along the way. Making mistakes is part of learning. What’s important is you apply those learnings and eventually, you’ll have the perfect school garden!
About the Author Laura Bennett
Hello, I’m Laura Bennett. I love nature especially when it comes to flowers and different kinds of plants. I started a very small garden behind my house and I named it Humid Garden. So, I created this blog to provide aspiring and inspiring thoughts about gardening for gardeners and anyone who has the intention of keeping a garden.
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