Happy new year! Water We returned to school after the winter break to see that the hose bib in the garden has been installed, so we have water access again after a couple of years without it. This will be a significant improvement over dragging hoses through classroom windows or from the custodial closet in the basement, or lugging innumerable watering cans … More Water and worms
We will be adding an after-school gardening club to our club line-up in the spring, with classes led by Seattle Tilth (soon to be Tilth Alliance)!
We had our first work party in the garden yesterday, and 23 people–students and their families, teachers, and community members–braved the cold to help. We moved plants, built an arc of (at least temporary) classroom seating with some of the log rounds, and piled the rest of the rounds in the middle for now. We’ll keep some of … More Successful work party and other garden news
The Beacon Food Forest, on Beacon Hill just a short drive across the West Seattle Bridge, is worth a visit and provides inspiration for our learning garden. On the hillside west of Jefferson Park, the Beacon Food Forest is an “edible forest garden” full of vegetables, herbs, fruit, and berries free to be foraged and harvested by the public. When I was there … More Inspiration from the Beacon Food Forest
Has your student looked closely at those beautiful log rounds in the NE garden lately? They’re of course pretty, a nice place to sit, and fun to climb on (though slippery right now, so be careful), but are also growing some varied and prolific fungi at the moment. Your budding mycologist might enjoy taking a look. Some of … More Log rounds
What’s next in greening our schoolyard? Starting work in the garden! After a few presentations and meetings over the past couple of weeks, we have a green light from the school and district to move ahead with garden improvements. Teachers are excited, school leadership is supportive, and the district is behind us as long as … More Next steps?
I’ve just posted the design being proposed to rejuvenate a Gatewood learning garden / outdoor classroom, lovingly developed by the permaculture design team. Take a closer look!
The permaculture design team and I have been visiting school gardens over the past several months (click here for photos), talked with some of these schools’ garden coordinators, and spent time in conversation with Seattle Tilth. (Thanks to everyone for your time!) One consistent message we’re hearing is that it’s important for us to be clear as a … More How do we use our garden?
To date, Gatewood’s gardening areas have been dispersed around the grounds, with raised beds at the south entry and an in-ground garden in the northeast corner of the property. A native plant garden proposed in our last master plan was to be located by the gym at the top of the playground. The school district, though, suggests concentrating gardens in one … More Where does our garden grow?
A green schoolyard for Gatewood Elementary 