Gardening 101 offers tips for launching schoolyard gardens

Henry Owen of Friendship Gardens shares tips in Gardening 101

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By Rich Haag

Teachers loved the jewel-case seedling garden.

Who knew that an old CD jewel case could help get both kids AND their teachers excited about schoolyard and classroom gardens?
Using the clear-plastic cases as 21st-century seed starters was among dozens of tips that teachers received on Nov. 1 at the Green Teacher Network fall workshop.
Henry Owen of Friendship Gardens spent close to an hour sharing ideas on how to launch a schoolyard garden with several dozen participants at the Green Teacher Network’s Nov. 1 gathering. What got his audience’s biggest response?
Seedlings sprouting in, of all things, old CD jewel cases.
“That got an even bigger reaction than the photos of my son,” Henry joked as dozens of teachers and garden volunteers oohed over a Powerpoint slide showing the novel planters.
The fledgling Green Teacher Network launched last summer as a way for people running gardens at nearly 100 area schools to network, learn and share with one another. The Catawba River District, Mecklenburg Food Policy Council, Mecklenburg Health Department and Friendship Gardens are sponsoring the network with strong support from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

Word spreading about GTN

In August, Darlene Petranic shared lessons with eggs.

The first event in August drew about 20 people; about 50 attended the event on Nov. 1 at CPCC’s Harris Campus.
Henry’s talk was the biggest attraction, even though more than half of the participants already have gardens up and running. He gave tips on how to create garden goals, assemble a strong team, gain needed buy-in by school administrators and teachers, find a good location, improve the soil and, whew! Finally begin planting seeds and seedlings. (You can see a dozen short video clips of Henry’s presentation at the Green Teacher Network website).
Also at the Nov. 1 event:

• Regina Boyd, principal of Winterfield Elementary School, talked about the positive impact her gardens have had student learning. 
• Darlene Petranick, the science lab teacher at Lebanon Road Elementary School, discussed small grants and other resources available from the NC Farm Bureau.
• Teachers and garden volunteers took park in separate breakout sessions to talk about what they are doing. 

The next quarterly event will take place in February. Meanwhile, the coalition of sponsors are putting together on-line garden resources, including the website, a Google-Docs library, and social media to keep the talking and sharing going.

Learn more

Visit GTNCharlotte.org for additional information about the network and gardening resources and to sign up for the GTN Charlotte newsletter. Visit the website’s Resources page to view Gardening 101 videos.