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School Gardens as part of your School's Culture · In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The opinions expressed on this show are not necessarily those of the station, the university, or the UC Board of Regents.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: For more information on the show, visit KUCI.org.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to 88.9 KUCI in Irvine.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is In the Garden with your host, Bill Brooks, University of California Master Gardener.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking to Master Gardener Kelly Osborne today.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Kelly is a credential teacher.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: She has a master's in education technology.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And she is a newly elected school board member in the Laguna Beach Unified School District.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: She's going to give us some insight on making a school garden part of the school's culture as well as part of the curriculum.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Kelly.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Please tell us a little more about yourself.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Ah well, thanks so much, Bill.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, I am a teacher and an outdoor educator, and I've been working in the Laguna Beach Unified School District for about six years leading their outdoor classroom program.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also a master gardener, went through my Master Gardener training a couple years back, and a mom of two boys.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of schools have gardens.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: It seems to be the thing to do these days, but often a garden is started with a lot of enthusiasm, and then in a couple of years it's nothing but weeds, it's no longer being used.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: You have a vibrant program at Top of the World Elementary School that's existed for quite a few years.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: How does a school accomplish this?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, it's such a great question.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and I agree, you know, starting a garden is um, you know, is a lot of work and effort, but the the maintenance of that program and sustaining the garden program is definitely um much more work, and that's oftentimes why you do see some of those programs fall by the wayside.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, here at uh Top of the World Elementary School, you know, we have a lot of um programs and systems that help our garden program sustain over the years.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So when we'll talk more about this in the show, but you know, first and foremost, the garden is really integrated into the educational practices of the school.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's probably the most critical part of how you can have these vibrant programs.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, schools are there to educate the students, so the garden really needs to support that mission.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Another way that uh the school needs to kind of sustain the program is thinking about what maintenance needs to be done to keep that garden in good shape.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, teaching students in a garden is much different than what you know needs to be done in terms of whether that's pruning or weeding or raking.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there needs to be a plan for that.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: In our program, we have a really simple month-by-month checklist of all the things that need to get done.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes we'll have some support from teachers and students, but we have a very large volunteer base that comes out to help us maintain that that program.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we document things, you know, we document exactly what it takes so that it's easy to repeat those steps the next year.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you even said you had buy-in from your school custodian.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, it's a real all hands-on-deck program from the principal to every classroom teacher to you know, each of the custodians.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: You really need to, you know, have everybody behind the garden.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And when it's well maintained, it's a real source of pride for all the members of the school community.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So as making a school garden part of your school's culture as well as the instructional program and curriculum, your school does have a website people can go to, and it's very easy to remember.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's to w garden oneword.org.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: The website talks about the outdoor classroom.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us a little bit about what is an outdoor classroom.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, an outdoor classroom really goes beyond just a school garden, right?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: A school garden is a set of, you know, garden boxes or some trees with some plants in it, but an outdoor classroom is where students can come and actually learn successfully in that space.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, our outdoor classroom has curriculum that goes with it, and it also has things that you would find in a traditional classroom that make learning conducive, like seeding, like shade, like storage.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you never could uh you know you wouldn't walk into a traditional classroom and not see a place for students even to sit or to store their belongings.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so the concept of an outdoor classroom is that we can take students into nature and have them learn some really um, you know, rigorous curriculum, but have it been done in a way that is really in a classroom setting.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so, you know, our program over many years has evolved into this concept of you know taking that learning um outside, and that's really what we mean when we say an outdoor classroom.
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  SPEAKER_00: So author Richard Louvre talks about a nature deflect disorder deficit disorder.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: What is a nature deficit disorder?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, um this is a great um author and book.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was a term that was coined back in 2005 with Louvre's, I mean, fantastic book, Last Child in the Woods.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he uses it to describe, you know, some of the really positive effects that come out of being in nature, especially for children, and by the same token, some of the negative effects that we see when children are deprived of experiences in nature.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, he really goes into why there are less opportunities for children to be in nature with you know some urban, you know, planning reasons and lots of reasons.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: But the the bottom line is that, you know, in this kind of seminal work, he he shared that when children lack time and experience in nature, that we see effects of you know more obesity, you know, diminished use of their senses, um, higher rates of illness and attention difficulties.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, the the concept that we are deficit we have a deficit in being in nature kind of really took hold, and the community, the international community, kind of rallied around trying to get children back into nature.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's as uh you know, as simple as having, you know, uh children still having recess.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in some schools, recess was cut.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and in our school it really means being out of nature, being surrounded by trees and plants and really studying them up close.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we're I'm we're lucky enough to be at the campus today, which is in a beautiful setting.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's on top of a hilltop between the Pacific Ocean and the rest of Orange County here at Top of the World Elementary.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And your space looks like it's it's pretty close to an acre in size.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big space.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: So let's if you could describe the garden for our listeners, that would be wonderful.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and you know, as we're sitting out here having this conversation, you know, we're hearing, you know, the birds up in the eucalyptus tree, you know, we're close to some, you know, lavender and Cleveland sage that maybe has some bees buzzing around it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what it's really like for our students when they're out here.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's quiet and they can hear the sounds of nature.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: They can hear the tree leaves rustling, they can hear some of the, you know, the insects or the birds out there.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, and that's you know, to your prior question, that's really what we're we're trying to address, right?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Being out in nature and uh connecting with it.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: But specifically the space, um, we have actually have three garden spaces on our elementary school campus.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: We serve K through five.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: The one that we're sitting in today, yes, is quite large.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's about an acre.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: We have 25 fruit trees up here, ranging from citrus, taguava, um, some avocados, um, peach, apricot, pomegranate, um, all kinds of different trees.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: We also have about 40 raised beds where we grow our annual vegetables.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have a variety of themed or thematic gardens that correspond to our curriculum.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: For example, uh a fire safe garden that we use when learning about some of the you know natural hazards out there like wildfires.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have a California-themed garden that our fourth graders grow that focuses on California-specific plants like artichokes and garlic.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: We have a pollinator garden, we have a wellness garden.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And woven into all of that focus on the plants and the trees is really the concept of a classroom.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have a large seeding area where you could seed a class of 30 students.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: We have an area that for those educators out there would be conducive for direct instruction where all students are facing forward.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have pathways that help students know where to go and help lead them safely amongst the garden.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um that's our space.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you have some garden boxes for vegetables.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us a little bit more.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: We looked at a healing garden, for example, what's in the healing garden and what is that like?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, that was a really fun program.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, in managing a school garden program, we try and kind of take on one big new thing a year.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And um, maybe it was two or three years back, I had a group of parents that wanted to grow this wellness garden or a medicine garden, and that has things, you know, some um herbs, you know, like sage, oregano, thyme, lemon verbena.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: It has other really interesting plants like calendula that has a lot of uh uses, you know, in salves, you know, maybe for chapstick or um for some other healing types of properties.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: We have lemongrass, um, just some interesting plants.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Then, you know, what we've done for the students is we, you know, we have printed up cards that share the history of each of those plants and what types of ailments, whether it's maybe, you know, um helps them maybe sleep at night better or maybe helps them with an upset tummy.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: We've printed that information out on some of the plant markers as well.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: So do students actually get to try any of these uh medicinal herbs and things that are growing?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, definitely, yeah.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think uh we've made them into teas, you know, iced tea where they'll uh take lemon verbena and put it into tea bags and we'll infuse a tea.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, they're most of them are edible right off the the plant, and so they can taste them as well.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, we have you know lots of the mints spreading out of control up there.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that's it's a wonderful garden.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And did you say you had how many vegetable boxes do you have?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: We have about 40 total.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's incredible.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, with those, you know, those are our again, you know it's a school garden, so we try and uh focus on the fall, the winter, and the early spring growing months.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we'll see a lot of root vegetables, starting with carrots and beets, uh, to lettuces, shards, kales, and then usually by the spring about uh March, we'll um put in fava beans, um, garlic, onions, things like that.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: We'll do over the summer, we'll put in some sweet potato slips and we have sweet potatoes in the fall.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: We actually skip the summer, the traditional summer vegetables mostly.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's probably no pizza gardens here, which is your basil and your tomatoes and your oregano's.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the yeah, I stopped growing large tomatoes because I found that you know, growing a cherry tomato plant in a school garden is so much more effective.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: The kids can just pick the tomato right off the plant and eat it.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it doesn't get all over their shirt like it would on a larger, heavier tomato, and uh there's more to go around.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, school gardens really kind of need to reframe um the growing experience around the child, right?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Versus maybe as adults we might make different choices.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we were walking around touring, you mentioned that you want things that can be easily picked and eaten on the spot where they can quickly wash it off and pop something in their mouth.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So a cherry tomato would definitely fit that bill, but you've got to have an abundance of produce here.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So what do you do with everything growing in the garden?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh, yeah, that good question.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we, you know, what what uh what they can't just eat off the uh the plant and take care of um, you know, that there's that's the the primary focus, the students right from the plant into the mouth.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um beyond that, we take the um produce to the cafeteria.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have a great persimmon tree, and you know, the nutrition department usually doesn't source persimmons, they're you know, they're pricey and uh hard to procure, and they really look forward to putting those on the salad bar or putting them out for students in the traditional um cafeteria lunch line.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then same thing, you know, any lettuces we might have, um extra oranges, typically go to our school cafeteria, and they have these great little cards on the salad bar that say they know they were grown in in the school garden here, and that makes the kids really excited to pick that and try it.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's wonderful that the school cafeteria actually uses the food that you grow.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then I noticed on your website that to raise money you actually do a farmer's market.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about your farmers' markets.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, so in the fall, which is one of our biggest markets because it precedes the uh Thanksgiving holiday, we have the kids, um, they do a math lesson to pick and price all of the produce.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, at that time of year we have our pomegranates, talked about the persimmons, the sweet potatoes, we have a lot of our citrus, um, you know, our mandarin oranges, lemons, limes.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the kids pick all of that and they set their prices and they present to the group what they're going to charge.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we get it all set up for the school community to come and purchase that that produce.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's really, it's really wild.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, some years we've raised, occasionally we'll do them again in the winter and the spring, but we'll raise on upwards of$4,000 for the program.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa, that's amazing.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that does, so that's something else if you're listening and you're thinking about your own school garden to think about a source for income to put back in because gardens are expensive.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: You have to replant every year, you have to update your soils and things, and so very good idea.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for sharing that with us.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, do you grow from seeds or do you buy pre-started plants?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, we do both.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have a greenhouse, an 18-foot uh diameter geodesic uh greenhouse, and when we added that, it was through a grant from a company called Seeds of Change, and that really helped us expand how much we could grow from seed.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to grow things from seed unless you have proper propagation spaces, especially at the level that we were needing.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have 600 students on campus, you know, every single one of those 600 students comes into our garden, you know, every month, and many of them come every week at lunch.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we need a lot of plant material.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: So for the propagation from seed, we do that in our greenhouse with easy to propagate things.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, peas are a great example, shard.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: We'll save some seeds from prior seasons to start again.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: But then we also start from seedlings as well.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: In our first and second grade garden, we find that having a little plant seedling that's ready to go and has a more immediate gratification works really well for that age group.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And some of our older students, you know, because they get involved in not just the steed starting, but then the upplanting, right, to a bigger container, and then the transplanting gives them what we call more seed impressions.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I see.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because they get to handle that process more times than they would if it was just a nursery ground starter.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the geodome that the school has is it's very creative.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's I I love the shape, it's dome-like.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: It has a pond inside of it.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: What's the purpose of the pond inside your greenhouse?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: So the pond is part of the overall passive solar design, and the pond helps regulate the temperature in the greenhouse.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: So in the winter, the water and uh you know stays warm in that pond, warmer than maybe the air temperature and helps kind of heat up the greenhouse.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And in the summer, the the pond water helps keep the temperature down in the greenhouse.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it kind of regulates the temperature.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it also is a just a great teaching item because it allows the students to connect the all of the solar concepts that are going on in that greenhouse with, you know, whether it's you know, the solar panels that are on top of the greenhouse or the passive solar elements with the position of it, you know, in the space and the north-facing walls, and you know, it just gives us a lot of really robust real-world phenomenon to share with our students.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Ya Kelly even mentioned when she showed me the greenhouse that it has pistons that are filled with beads wax that contract and expand with with heat so that it opens the panels to let hot air out and cool air in, which was I thought an amazing feature, especially for kids to see, because it starts at thinking outside of the box, which I think is so important.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, do you buy your seeds?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do you like to get them online or do you just get them at a local garden center?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we do a variety, we get a lot of donations, and you know, that's part of uh maintaining a robust program is you do have to find those sources that might be willing to donate.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh in a school garden, you go through a lot of seeds.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot don't germinate, everybody wants to have seeds to plant.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: You always plant more than you might uh otherwise as a home gardener.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, we typically get uh donations as they might be nearing their expiration date.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Even our local hardware store knows to save their their inventory as they near that expiration date and give them to us.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, very good.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: There might be something that we need, maybe we need another pack of California poppy right at the moment before it's gonna rain, and we'll go down to the store and buy those two.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you said you gathered some seeds.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: What give me give me some examples of the plant species where you gather seeds from?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, yes.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the the great thing that I want to plug here is that the student, the child, you know, they really start to see how they can connect the fact that the plant not only produces something edible for them to eat, but then maybe after that point, you know, produces the seed for them to then grow the plant again.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's really an eye-opening moment when they figure that out.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some of the things that we like to save seeds from are rainbow shard plants, make a nice um large, you know, large enough to handle for a you know a seven or eight-year-old's uh fingertips seed.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh peas, uh fava beans will save seeds from.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh radish as well.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the larger uh, you know, easy to to easy to gather seeds, you can, and that's amazing because then it's teaching students the entire process, the circle, so to speak.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you you have to uh you have to be willing to let some of your plants, you know, go into that kind of mangly stage.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: I know I've heard of some school gardens that have a bed that's just dedicated to seed production.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: So nobody's tempted to maybe pick those prior to their that phase of their cycle.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: So who does who with all so many people involved, who makes the decision on what what to grow?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: You said a little bit that you want to make sure that things are ripe and harvested during the months school's in, so you skip the summer month typical produce, the hot weather produce.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: So who makes tell us a little more about the decisions?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you know, we we lay it out on a calendar.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, once you figure things out, I always advise people that are interested in school gardenings just write it down and document it so you don't have to figure that out again next year.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, good idea.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Gardening is really seasonal, and what we're doing in the fall is different from what we're doing in the spring.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so we use just a month-by-month sheet, and we tend to plant the same things each month that we know work.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that really helps us keep it simple and not get um maybe not um make the same mistakes twice.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: The um the carrots, the beets, uh the lettuces that maybe we start with in the fall.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's four or five of those things, and we do that planting cycle, and then in the winter we come with another planting cycle, and the spring, you know, two or three more things.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't get too, especially on the annuals, we we don't get too um crazy, you know, with that because we want to work.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: We want it to work, we want to have some success.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And with seeds, that's the students really need to be able to handle this, this, the size.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, try, I have first graders, and when you know, when we do those carrots from seed, you know, you give them a handful of carrot seeds and you turn around and they're blowing in the wind.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if you don't mind sharing with us some things that haven't worked out well for you.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you know, one one year we did, I had a I was working with the middle school students.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: We were doing uh, I was working with a history teacher, we were doing a a lesson on ancient civilization and some of the ancient grains, ancient crops.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so we wanted to try some new things that were out of my zone, you know, that were, you know, maybe in the the Mesopotamia time frame.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we she and I had done some research and we wanted the kids to try um planting lentils and flax and uh maybe some peas.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Those were um of that time period.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they grew, but I wouldn't say that we ever got, you know, maybe more than 15 lentils.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the flax was pretty, but you know, right.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: The kids were like, can we eat it?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're not gonna weave cloth that's clothes or or cloth out of it, that's for sure.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so those sometimes we do things that have an educational component, and it's really more about the process than the product.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's one example.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then we talked about uh, you know, sometimes we've been eager or very excited at the end of the school year and want to put those watermelons.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: We really in a school garden setting try and give our gardens a little bit of a rest in the summer, you know, and let our volunteers recharge and let our staff recharge.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when we've had big ambitions about summer crops, we you know have decided not to do that again the next year.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Let them go.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: I see.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever tried pumpkins?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: So pumpkins are the exception because they're a May start and they're an October harvest.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: So they're perfect.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: You just kind of got to get them going before you give yourself as a school garden coordinator that kind of summer break.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, because you don't want to be up here.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you need a break, obviously.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Are there any other features?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: You told us a lot about the gardens, but any other features in this outdoor space that we might want to touch upon?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're at a wonderful picnic table for our interview, and there's about eight of them, which is perfect learning space and and space for students to sit and and relax in another outdoor classroom.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: So anything else that you do that we didn't cover?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I've met with other school gardens or you know, groups of other teachers or school principals about you know how to make a really good garden program.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I talk a lot about a couple S's.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: One is seating, right?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: So really think about where are your students going to sit when you want to just share with them what the plan is before everybody gets up to go do something.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Shade, you know, here in our mild climate, we have year-round sun, and we really need shade to be able to be in an outdoor classroom setting, you know, for 60 to 90 minutes.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if I call those exciting, but um, you know, they're kind of fun to plan out, and they can be as simple as um picnic tables or tree stumps.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we use hay bales for seeding, very cheap seeding, and when it falls apart, you can mulch your garden.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so those are some features that when thinking about how to keep a school garden program going, you really need to um to address.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: The other exciting thing that we focus a lot on is signage.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I have you know, signs for you know, a lot of our perennial plants that even have a QR code.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and the students can scan that and learn more about the plant, or a parent volunteer um could scan that.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, signage is another kind of important S in our in our garden.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, Kelly, you we talked, we touched on this, and I I definitely want to know more for our listeners about the partnerships that you've developed in the garden uh to keep this operating.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: So talk a little bit about those partnerships and how you went about developing them.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we have about you know six to eight key partners.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I would say first and foremost, you know, our our school PTA, you know, most school PTAs have fundraisers they do each year, they have an annual source of funding, and our garden program became an annual source of spending some of that money, and then also doing some of our own fundraising.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: That has to be a core connection because it connects you with the families at the school and is really a cornerstone of family engagement.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we also are engaged with our local garden club.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: We have, you know, we have uh friends like you at the Master Gardeners and many others that help us on technical issues, you know, maybe a struggling avocado tree or a gopher program or a gopher problem.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um but we have our local Laguna Beach Garden Club that provides us annual funding as well.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: We have a couple partnerships over the years with other large grant sources like Whole Foods, um, Seeds of Change, where we'll write grants and receive you know some funding for different things.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not to be overlooked is the relationship at any school with the company that's providing the landscape maintenance.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that's the school district itself or an independent contractor.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because you mentioned on the tour, tell us a little bit about what the school district is willing to do for you in your garden space.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, this is just like the this the school field or any classroom, you know, the you know, the the students are here and learning.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: So our our landscape management company, you know, likes to keep it uh, you know, raked.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: They like to keep, you know, certain perennials pruned for us.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: If we have a lot of debris from a big work cleanup day that we did with families, they'll help us take that out.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they'll come and attend those days.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: And these would be the companies like Brightview or Park West or any um landscape company that's providing services to the school district, and they're very knowledgeable and and they become part of the culture of the garden.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you also said that because you're in the wildlands up here have an issue with rattlesnakes, and so the garden is fenced, but the school district put some fencing or some wire down underneath the fence to keep the rattlesnakes out, so they became part of that.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, yeah, and I guess it goes without saying the first and foremost, you know, your main partnership is is that school um um, you know, principal district, teaching staff, that's an an integrated piece um to the garden.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we're just really thankful for all those partners.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Even back when we um gosh, maybe it's been six or seven years now, we partnered with the local ecology center down San Juan Capistrano.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they helped us uh redesign our space to look at the garden and um develop kind of a master, a master plan to really make it a beautiful space.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to think outside the box and we have to start thinking of these gardens as classroom space.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I like that.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's an excellent takeaway from today.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: During your tenure at Top of the World Elementary School, you led the team that earned a school to be designated as a U.S.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Department of Education Green Ribbon School.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about what it means to be a green ribbon school.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a designation um, again, from the US Department of Ed.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know about a one to two year process uh to apply for the designation.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: And really what it means is that this is a school or a district that's committed to uh do three things.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: One, reduce their environmental impact and cost.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that could be, you know, reducing um, you know, using more um energy efficient HVAC systems.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: That could be planting throughout the campus, not just in the garden.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is the whole school.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe planting more native plants and reducing their water use.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the second thing is that uh a school that that's designated Green Ribbon uh is committed to improving the health and wellness of school students and staff.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: And what's interesting about this, this could even cross over into providing social and emotional learning for kids.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: This could be providing um you know health and wellness benefits to staff.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is you know, providing uh maybe a lunchtime garden club.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: So really, really broad.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the third and final pillar of that program is providing effective environmental education, and that's really what we're talking about here today.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, is there a consistent way that students, all students at a site or in a district are receiving environmental education?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's really a wonderful program.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can apply for it and just through the process of applying for it, the school will really learn so much about what they're doing, what more they could do, and it really can be kind of a journey for a school that wants to improve in those areas.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did the garden spaces as well as your outdoor classroom here at Top of the World Elementary School help you with the green, with the school's green ribbon designation?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think it was one of those driving forces.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um our program is has a lot of momentum.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have a really large space and it's really well integrated into the uh the students' curriculum.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, it helped meet a lot of the required measures, you know, like you know, um regular environmental education provided to all students.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Also, nutrition education is a component of that.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: So the fact that students were able to taste persimmons fresh off the tree or you know, have some rainbow shard on the school cafeteria salad bar, those were all criteria, you know, that you earn different uh scoring points for in that application.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do any off-campus outdoor education at all at Top of the World?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: We definitely do.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and again, you know, the program is more than just a garden.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: It talks about field trips, you know.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, in our application, we'll talk about um, you know, different classroom field trips maybe to the you know, the mission or over to the next nature center, or you know, the fifth graders used to take a nature hike at the end of their their years down into Lisa Wood Canyons, and all of those are part of the program.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: The components that you can do.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do your fifth graders do sleepaway outdoor school at all?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in in uh Laguna Beach Unify, that uh sleepaway program is in sixth grade, so it's at the first middle school.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's in middle school.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you get teacher buy-in with outdoor learning and a school garden?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh, that you know, that's such a great, a great question.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, some of the easy ways, um, you know, our all of our garden spaces become a great space for staff to eat lunch and they're just a beautiful space for you know teachers to take a break from the day and sit out and be outside and maybe be visiting with their peers.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: That was one um kind of prong of having the garden be a space for staff on the campus and again providing shade for them to be in the garden.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: We provide, you know, once once every month we provide kind of a brown bag lunch.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we set up a time that everybody, um teachers can all come and be together in the garden.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one prong of it.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: With the curriculum, a lot of it is is really kind of co-teaching.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: So as an outdoor educator, you know, my job is to work with them with what they're teaching in the classroom and link it to something that we can do in the outdoor classroom.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so we do a lot of planning together.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: We have an elementary science specialist that I work with, and we'll sit down and plan out the year of what outdoor lessons correlate with maybe what they're learning inside the four walls.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Inside the four walls, wonderful.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk some more about connecting the garden with K-5 curriculum.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you could maybe go into some detail about some of the curricular connections here.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so maybe we'll just kind of start with science because that is such a that's an easy spot.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's an easy spot, and we have our next generation science standards that are very rigorous and uh really exciting because you know what they focus on is this concept of real world phenomenon, right?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Observing it and interacting with it, and what a better place than to be out in an outdoor setting with that real world phenomena right up in front of you.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Here's an example.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: First graders now are supposed to learn about plant inheritance.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how you know adult plants and child plants look similar but not exactly the same.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a first-grade science standard.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they inherit some of those traits from their parent.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the science specialist and I would get together and think about how are we going to do that in the outdoor classroom with our first graders.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe we're gonna look at small tomato seedlings and mature tomato plants and compare the size of the leaves or the shades, or maybe uh look at an agave plant and how it produces offspring and how that offspring is you know similar to the parent plant.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, once you have those standards and you think about your space, it really comes alive with how you can meet those.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's just there's so many things with science.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: We could talk about um, you know, plant life cycles, about uh pollination, you know, we talk about erosion, um, we talk about soil structure, we talk about um and learn about uh natural disasters and how plants might be able to resist some of the natural um hazards that we have in our area, like wildfires.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, beyond science, um, we have a lot of mass standards that are pretty easy to integrate um into the the outdoor classroom, and we we look at them by grade.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: This might be measuring the plant height of a sunflower with unifix cubes in kindergarten.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um it might be um, you know, in fifth grade, we you were looking over at our rain barrel system, and in fifth grade our students calculate the the rain catchment possibilities that could, you know, based on the square foot, square footage of our roof line and the volume of our rain barrels, how many inches of rain need to fall to fill those?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we prevent it as uh present it as an inquiry and um you know it's just in there's a s there's so much, you know, even with the farmer's market that we mentioned, uh-huh, you know, a lot of weight and measurement.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um you said they get to set their prices too.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: They set their prices.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And how do how do they determine that?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: What what criteria do they use for price setting?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of times we have them do it um by if they've already hit some of the math uh weight standards, you know, ounces or pounds, you know, we don't use pounds so much anymore, but um, you know, have them weigh it and maybe decide where they're gonna price it per piece or are they gonna price it by weight?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes they'll say, Okay, I'm gonna charge five dollars for this piece of shard.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so we say, Okay, would you go and pay five dollars of your allowance for that piece of shard?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then maybe they say, Oh, maybe I'm gonna charge less.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we really, it's their think about it.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: So connecting math and science to the garden is easy.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: What about things like reading and writing and those kinds of curricular areas?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, that there's there's lots of ways to do that.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some that come to mind that we've done in the past, you know, you don't want to have too many papers in your garden.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you want to have um clipboards are great because you know, a lot of times you're observing, you're recording, you might be calculating like we just talked about.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: But you want it to feel different.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: You want it to be a different experience than indoors in the classroom.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: But occasionally we still will read pieces, or maybe we'll read before we come out to the garden.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: For example, our fourth graders, they study uh obviously the California missions.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: They might read a couple passages about what the gardens on the missions looked like.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: And they might read about what that life was like, um, maybe how they protected their garden areas.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: They did it with uh, you know, fallen uh tree branches and choya cactus, and they might come with that background knowledge as we start to um, you know, integrate some of that into a lesson.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we're um, you know, we have an olive tree and we'll have them pick olives and try and you know recreate making olive.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um so a lot of times it's background reading.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our fifth graders they study a lot of um colonial garden topics, and so reading about um Jefferson's gardens at Monticello um gives them a lot of context before.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: So they get their background before they come here, and then that can lead to further questions in their study.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Talk a little bit about the way technology is incorporated into Top of the World.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: We've kind of touched on it, but you you have two buildings out here, and tell us a little bit about them and the technology.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, we definitely have some green tech going on out here.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, our equipment for this interview is um plugged into a solar um powered battery system we have in our shed.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of school gardens maybe aren't close to a uh power source of the schools, so we've um engaged our high school solar club come out, and they actually were the ones that um did a couple project-based learning experiences to put solar into the garden.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: We have a plant tagging system that I mentioned.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: We use plant uh plant tags and QR codes for all of our perennials, and uh that's a really great tool.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: That QR code brings up another custom page that tells the student more about that plant.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they can use that for research reports uh or just you know um curiosity.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: We in terms of managing our program, we use a lot of technology, so not just in the you know the education of the students, but in actually managing the school garden program.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: We use Google signups, you know, we we use about 75 volunteers every year.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so it's uh a lot of um just managing of of of people and times and right that the technology can do, and then of course, you geodome.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: We talked already about the technology that's involved in there.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any funny stories about things that have happened in your outdoor classroom or in the garden?
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Besides the carrots, seeds blowing away.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: That that makes me laugh because I can picture that.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: I know, right?
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you know, here's some more carrot seeds, uh, Joey.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's uh you there's a lot of trial and error.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when we first put an Argeodome, the contractors that were helping us install it, they they finished this pond.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we were so excited.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have this hydro project pond with fish and uh water-based plants.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: We had never had that before.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when they finished the pond, the pond was almost five feet tall.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so we said, no, we have to redo the we have to cut down the height of that pond to make it, you know, child-centered.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: The pond, after the first year, we came back from the summer, despite all of our best efforts, trust me.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, coming every week and checking on the fish.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you had a heat snap and we had some floating fish, you know, and the kids come running out, you know, Mrs.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Osborne, there's there's a fish floating in the pond.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've improved a lot of our um ability to care for our fish over the years, you know, just through trial and error.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Try and um you know, we try and keep a light spirit about it.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's always good.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: You have to, especially when you're exploring and doing new things in the classroom.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: We talked a little bit about funding.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh your your PTA has made it a budget line item, which I think is an important bit of advice to give schools that are struggling with keeping their garden going.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you also said that you had the farmers market.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any other sources of funding to keep this garden going?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I would expand a little on the the farmers market.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: That uh it's a funding source, but it's also this great uh annual event that demonstrates to the community what you have in your school.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so maybe some some families are engaged in the program and are coming, you know, on during the week or on the weekends to help maintain it, but others uh by uh virtue of the farmer's market get to see the you know, see what the students are growing.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really uh not just a financial um piece, but it's really a community engagement piece.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll add that we sell a lot of products made from things in the garden.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh so typically, you know, there's the produce, the the I'll call it the bulk produce, but each grade level um those the maybe the teachers or the parents that are involved will um come up with something from that grade.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're gonna make a sugar scrub that has some herbs from the first grade plot, or they're gonna make a um cookie that's made with the persimmons that students grow, and that adds a lot of um profit, if you will, to the farmers' markets.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because they're homemade things.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's and that's awesome for students to get involved in that because it gets them thinking, and I think that's the important thing.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you said grants, so there are grants out there, and you just have to search for garden grants to see if you can apply for one.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and grants.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Grants are a great, great way to get a garden going.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, oftentimes they're a one-time infusion.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times they're they're they take a little bit of time to apply for and follow up on.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I definitely encourage, you know, looking at uh the grants that come out of um Whole Foods and you know doing some internet search searches to see what you can find.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: But the the look the the regular sustained funding year over year is what's important.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: So whether that's the PTA, the school district, the local garden club, you know, committing um, you know, maybe one to a couple thousand dollars to to make sure that there's money every year to buy seeds, soil, amendments, um that's you know, replace tools, that's really important to sustain the program.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, I see.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is obviously a tool and materials intensive class to run out here.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you keep your garden going over the summer break?
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we, you know, um we have our handy-dandy month-by-month garden activities, right?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you can even see, you know, we have a column for maintenance.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it says exactly, for example, in July, you know, we have some um jobs.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: We have to cut back our artichokes, we have to put the sunscreen on our avocado trunks, and we have to clean out the shed.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so by writing down, you know, two or three things that need to get done over um each of those summer months, you can um you can do them yourself, or you can have a volunteer do them.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you get summer volunteers?
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: We do.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's uh that's awesome.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so people would probably be satisfied coming in to do a project such as cleaning out the shed and then being done with it.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of um, you know, again, we don't we're trying not to grow too many things that are true summer crops, but there's always stuff um for those volunteers to take home, herbs and and uh the such.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you and you have a drip irrigation system that's on a timer, and so that also helps keep um your whole uh garden green if you do have herbs and and uh things going over the summer.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that would work.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you definitely, if you're developing a garden, you want a drip irrigation system.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, without a doubt.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's you know, when people ask for my advice, even in the pandemic, I got a lot of inquiries.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: I want to start a garden, and I say, Do you have any irrigation?
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so in a school garden, absolutely critical.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's school breaks, there's weekends, right?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes there's lack of access, having drip irrigation.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: Even up here, we have it so we can turn off the drip line to a certain bed.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing in that bed, especially important over the summer.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe some beds are empty and some aren't.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, really important to uh to try and hone in that irrigation.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I can see that.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you also too mentioned that you have some plants that you can cut back, such as the artichokes.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when we were looking at the garden, you you talk talk a little bit about the importance of having some food things that you can grow that come back year after year after year and what those would be.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so good good uh question.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: So the artichokes are a great one in our California climate.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you can uh you know, our artichoke plants can be strong and vigorous for five or six years.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um they're a great plant for students because they're usually taller than most of my fifth graders.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they at the end of the season you you cut them back and uh you know they'll continue producing.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: So why that's important is you know, you want to have plants that um that are producing without sometimes as much effort.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh growing uh annuals, you know, is a lot of it's a lot of labor.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so by thinking about some edible perennials, you can really get uh you can beautify your garden.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's true.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right by having something that's there for much of the year.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some of the other things I personally haven't had as much success, but I know that there's better gardeners than me.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um have had some success with asparagus.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's like a seven to ten year perennial.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have some lemongrass that I was showing you.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's huge.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: It must be ten feet tall.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that would be something we could cut back and it would come um come back year after year.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um a couple other ideas might be sweet potatoes.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, even though the kids pull them, they always seem to miss some and they seem to come back.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: The herbs, you know, a plentiful selection of your Mediterranean herbs is really a nice addition, worth the uh the effort to plan out.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and if you have a farmer's market, herbs come in a top price.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's another thing to think about if you want to think about a farmer's market for as a funding source for your school garden.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a that's also a great idea.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you also talk a little bit about pests.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you have quite a few up here.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Garden is fortunate to be fenced, but I think all gardens have to be fenced.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to the fencing, tell us a little bit more about your pest problems and what you've done to control them.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so our pests range from um rabbits, you know, our cute little bunnies that like to live in maybe some of the uh the bushes on the slopes that surround our school, uh, to rattlesnake.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe the average gardener wouldn't think of scorpions as a pest, but in a school garden, turning over a rock and finding scorpions not a good thing.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have uh rats, you know, another reason why we want to try and um keep a clean uh garden, keep falling fruit off the ground, you know, keep clutter to a minimum.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: School gardens always get tons of, you know, donated things and that can kind of accumulate, and that's not a good thing.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right, because rats love them.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they do.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um also a lot of times school gardens have sheds that are not secure, and that's it really can be a problem.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: They have a little storage shed that doesn't securely close, and um, you know, rats can get in there to um to nest.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you really want to think about upgrading your storage to be uh as secure as possible with no gaps.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um we also um have birds that can be pest to our berry crops and uh some of our stone fruit.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: So do you just build cages over your berry crops?
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: So on those we use uh sparkly tape, you know, the bird scare tape, because you know, the birds get some and we get some, so we're happy to share and it kind of looks pretty.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, for the the rabbits we use um above ground cages.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of like a uh a big box that goes over the raised bed, especially when a seedling might be in a really vulnerable stage.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um for the rattlesnakes, we talked about the fencing that's around the perimeter.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, it's just probably unique to maybe a s a school setting that's on a you know a wild land interface.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: We also have this the snail and slug issue that every gardener has.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we always used, you know, the you know, natural, the the the least uh invasive type of treatment.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and I I guess you know the old wives tale of a bowl of beer, you can't try it in elementary school.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you a funny story.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: We did actually one year.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: Our principal came over one Monday morning and he said, Kelly, there's all these beer cans in the trash can in the garden.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know where these beer cans are coming from, right?
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: That could be a real cause for concern on a campus.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I said, Oh, you know, we were trying to see if that would help the snail and slug, you know, process as uh as an experiment.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: But um no, we typically use just an iron phosphate, an all-organic, okay, um, you know, easy-to-spread uh solution for the snail.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: Solution for the So as we get to the near end of our program here, what advice do you have to schools that are trying to develop a garden curricular program and becoming part of their school cultures?
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think you know, start with the um, there's usually a couple teachers or there's a couple staff members on campus that um are really drawn to the outdoor space, um that are drawn to natural phenomenon or interested in the program already, and forming that coalition of people that really want to grow the program into having some more rigorous curriculum integration is a really good first step.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: Here at Top of the World, it was um really a priority from our leadership, from our principal to, you know, have every every class and every teacher out teaching in the garden.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: And one year he even said, you know, I want everybody to teach at least three times in the outdoor classroom.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just as simple as him saying, you know, we have next gen science standards, we have common core, all of those emphasize real-world learning.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so just give it a shot.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that really set the stage for it to be universal, and then um refining it to really match the scope and the sequence of what's happening in the classroom so it's very timely, was the way that uh teachers, at least at our site, really loved what the what the program could offer.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it worked, and you it sounds like the teacher buy-in, and I like what you said earlier about creating an outdoor space that's calming for teachers to take a break in and have their luncheon.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: That that's an awesome idea that I hadn't even thought about.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: Children spend less and less time outdoors, and it's taking a toll on their health and well-being.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: Research is shown that children do better physically and emotionally when they are in green spaces.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: A new trend is emerging to implement gardens into a school's curriculum and to help restore the broken bond between children and nature.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: We can learn and build upon what Kelly has done here.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a pleasure talking with you today, Kelly, and I've learned a lot, and I'm sure all the listeners have too.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: So to learn more about Top of the World School Garden, I want to give the website again.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's an easy one to remember.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's TO, T-O-W for Top of the World, and then the word garden, all one word, dot org.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's as easy as it can be, and there's a wealth of information and contacts and things if you want to go further than what we discussed in this program today.