Growing Together: Open Forum

Hello everyone,

I'm reaching out for some guidance and advice on starting a "small community" garden for the families that participate in our family child care program. We've got a dedicated space that measures 70' x 50' and includes an 8-10 foot circle in the center where we grew sunflowers, and envision trying peas, beans, and more. 

Last year, we dipped our toes in by using less than a quarter of the space, but we didn't have a formal plan or watering system in place. We did consider companion planting as best we could however, we essentially just jumped in, hoping to learn as we went along. This time around, however, we are keen to take a more structured approach to meet the needs of our community group for the coming year.

For context I run a small multi age (infants to 6 years or when they start kindergarten) nature inspired, child led, play based learning program on 5 acres. We are fortunate to have not only space for this garden space but also a large field and a forested area we get to explore regularly. We have about a dozen families each year with our group of 16 children. There are 3 teachers other than myself and sometimes I have a half time support person. 

We currently have one teacher and two enthusiastic parents ready to dive into the planning stages. What we're looking for is an outline or some first steps to help guide us in creating a sustainable and engaging garden for everyone involved. Any tips or resources on design, planting schedules, maintenance plans, and community involvement would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you all in advance for your help and advice! We're excited to create a more organized and fruitful garden experience this year.

Smiles,

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Ella Fultz
Gathering Tree Early Learning, LLC
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Ella, This sounds like a great project I am a volunteer garden teacher (retired special educator) at a low income public elementary school in CA. I am fortunate to have a quarter acre garden. I also recently started a small garden for a transition housing project for women and children who were previously homeless. My garden at the school is large- 15 raised vegetables and flower beds, greenhouse, compost bin, storage sheds, two fruit trees, seating and lots of CA natives. When I took over the garden, there were a few garden beds  with flowers and veggies. It's taken 20 years to get here.

My thoughts - It's great that you started small. Gardens are more work than we think. Two great classes that I have taken from this website are "Landscape Design for Youth Gardens" and "Growing Together: Developing Enduring Youth Garden Programs". These will take you step by step how to build or expand on a successful sustainable garden. Your next step should be to identify goals and design.  What do you need for this project? Funds? Tools? Water? Identify your stakeholders and constraints. Lay out your project  milestones. I've had success with veggies and annual flowers (and blubs) planted in raised garden beds and native plants in the ground.

Planting schedule - Our weather is great for planting all year. I keep it simple. I plant a winter crop and a summer crop. 

Community involvement - This is so important for sustainability. People need to know how your project is benefiting the local community. Tell everyone you know, friends, family, people you meet at an event, about your project. Develop a one minute talk you can share with them. You never know who might want to get involved in some way or know someone who might be a good resource for you. Reach out to Kiwanis, Soroptimists, Scouts, Chamber of Commerce, Americorp, other community leaders. Hold an open house with signs that say "Future site of ___________".

Best advice I ever got that keeps me going  --Be obsessive (don't give up), be focused (remember your goals but be willing to take different paths), be extreme, and set limits!

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Evelyn Margolin
Sacramento, CA
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Evelyn,

Thank you so much for your message. I am, for sure, going to take the classes you recommended. This year we are recruiting two families that love gardening and have lost their garden space at their home so they are very invested. I will consider having them watch these trainings as well. We have 4 family gatherings each year and one is always our Spring clean and planting day. Most families participate unless they have another engagement. We have had families take produce form the small plantings. We know that our kiddos eat more veggies if they grow them. They will graze on fruit during the growing season. We have access to blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, cascade berries, pink lemonade blueberries (if you have never tried these you are missing out), apples, pears, plums, asian pears, and hopefully this coming year our peach and apricot trees will produce fruit. 

I love the idea of holding an open house! We have been considering doing this verses tours as families call to find out about openings. We usually have a waitlist so waiting for an open house wouldn't mean they would have to wait longer to enrolll. 

I am printing the advice you were given and putting it at the front of our gardening notebook. 

I am getting amazing advice and guidance here! I love it!
Thank you again!

Ella

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Ella Fultz
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-08-2025 07:02:16 PM
From: Evelyn Margolin
Subject: Seeking First Steps Outline for a Small Community Garden

Ella, This sounds like a great project I am a volunteer garden teacher (retired special educator) at a low income public elementary school in CA. I am fortunate to have a quarter acre garden. I also recently started a small garden for a transition housing project for women and children who were previously homeless. My garden at the school is large- 15 raised vegetables and flower beds, greenhouse, compost bin, storage sheds, two fruit trees, seating and lots of CA natives. When I took over the garden, there were a few garden beds  with flowers and veggies. It's taken 20 years to get here.

My thoughts - It's great that you started small. Gardens are more work than we think. Two great classes that I have taken from this website are "Landscape Design for Youth Gardens" and "Growing Together: Developing Enduring Youth Garden Programs". These will take you step by step how to build or expand on a successful sustainable garden. Your next step should be to identify goals and design.  What do you need for this project? Funds? Tools? Water? Identify your stakeholders and constraints. Lay out your project  milestones. I've had success with veggies and annual flowers (and blubs) planted in raised garden beds and native plants in the ground.

Planting schedule - Our weather is great for planting all year. I keep it simple. I plant a winter crop and a summer crop. 

Community involvement - This is so important for sustainability. People need to know how your project is benefiting the local community. Tell everyone you know, friends, family, people you meet at an event, about your project. Develop a one minute talk you can share with them. You never know who might want to get involved in some way or know someone who might be a good resource for you. Reach out to Kiwanis, Soroptimists, Scouts, Chamber of Commerce, Americorp, other community leaders. Hold an open house with signs that say "Future site of ___________".

Best advice I ever got that keeps me going  --Be obsessive (don't give up), be focused (remember your goals but be willing to take different paths), be extreme, and set limits!

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Evelyn Margolin
Sacramento, CA
------------------------------

Hi Ella, how are you? Your entire project sounds so inviting and nourishing!  I'm a long-time garden educator and manager, and I'll share what I put in at one gardens:  located on a 2.5 acre urban nonprofit educational farm,  we created a large circular garden with pathway around and through, and put in 10 (tried for 12 but it was a volunteer project, see pix below) triangular-shaped raised beds, encircled by a wide bed holding perennial herbs and edibles including rhubarb; flowers (including sunflowers) and apothecary roses. 

This was in Denver, which is a different climate than you have in Vancouver - so of course yours will vary a bit.  We allocated the beds by season around the circle - and pre-planned lessons for each season and followed a seasonal planting/eating calendar - for example, we planted garlic and winter wheat and barley in the winter beds, early greens, peas and radishes in the spring bed; strawberries, beets, turnips, carrots, cukes, tomatoes,  etc in the summer beds, and short-vined squash and pumpkin in the fall beds. Intercropped with alliums, marigolds, nasturtiums depending on the veggies' needs to keep pests away and to attract pollinators.  I calendarized lesson plans on when to plant what and had the prek - 1st graders assist in soil prep, sowing and transplanting (but i double-bought starts and seeds to re-do their work as needed), and they loved tasting everything and even prepping recipes (supplementing ingredients as needed). I found it was important to have tools, including wheelbarrows, that fit the bodies of your age group, and that as soon as they can walk they love pulling things around in wagons. Curriculum and lessons follow the seasons and all the usual activities like flower pounding, seed collection, examining soil for creatures, color-matching painting that I'm guessing you already to just deepen the experience of the seasons. Weeding was not an activity that was successful with the children, for all the reasons. But soil prep, sowing, transplanting, some harvesting, some seedsaving - was.

I did add an outdoor blackboard, magnifying stand, and root-viewers from Natural Playground with grant funding.

Good luck!

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sue salinger
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Oh my goodness, thank you, Sue you have given me some great inspiration! I love the idea of seasonal gardens around the outer area of the garden. We have a perfect layout for some thing like this! My sister-in-law is a master gardener and lives just 3 doors down. You would think I have the best resource ever in here. She is immunocompromised and I work with young children who bring every little bug into our group We are all strong and healthy because of the exposures however for here it cold be bad news. Anyway back too your reply. I am going to share with our team about all you shared and figure out how we can use your knowledge and learning to guide us!

Thank you again!

Smiles,

Ella

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Ella Fultz
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-09-2025 12:35:49 PM
From: sue salinger
Subject: Seeking First Steps Outline for a Small Community Garden

Hi Ella, how are you? Your entire project sounds so inviting and nourishing!  I'm a long-time garden educator and manager, and I'll share what I put in at one gardens:  located on a 2.5 acre urban nonprofit educational farm,  we created a large circular garden with pathway around and through, and put in 10 (tried for 12 but it was a volunteer project, see pix below) triangular-shaped raised beds, encircled by a wide bed holding perennial herbs and edibles including rhubarb; flowers (including sunflowers) and apothecary roses. 

This was in Denver, which is a different climate than you have in Vancouver - so of course yours will vary a bit.  We allocated the beds by season around the circle - and pre-planned lessons for each season and followed a seasonal planting/eating calendar - for example, we planted garlic and winter wheat and barley in the winter beds, early greens, peas and radishes in the spring bed; strawberries, beets, turnips, carrots, cukes, tomatoes,  etc in the summer beds, and short-vined squash and pumpkin in the fall beds. Intercropped with alliums, marigolds, nasturtiums depending on the veggies' needs to keep pests away and to attract pollinators.  I calendarized lesson plans on when to plant what and had the prek - 1st graders assist in soil prep, sowing and transplanting (but i double-bought starts and seeds to re-do their work as needed), and they loved tasting everything and even prepping recipes (supplementing ingredients as needed). I found it was important to have tools, including wheelbarrows, that fit the bodies of your age group, and that as soon as they can walk they love pulling things around in wagons. Curriculum and lessons follow the seasons and all the usual activities like flower pounding, seed collection, examining soil for creatures, color-matching painting that I'm guessing you already to just deepen the experience of the seasons. Weeding was not an activity that was successful with the children, for all the reasons. But soil prep, sowing, transplanting, some harvesting, some seedsaving - was.

I did add an outdoor blackboard, magnifying stand, and root-viewers from Natural Playground with grant funding.

Good luck!

 

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sue salinger
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Ella, 

This sounds like a great project! I just wanted to pipe in and see if you were connected with any Farm to ECE staff in your state? There is a really great network forming across the country. If not, I am happy to try and help find that connection! Please feel free to send me an email, at slindley@doe.in.gov. 

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Sophie Lindley
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There are some resources here:

Resources | ACGA 

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Pete Quinn
Franciscan Monastery Garden Guild (fmgg.org)
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-19-2025 10:16:11 AM
From: Sophie Lindley
Subject: Seeking First Steps Outline for a Small Community Garden

Ella, 

This sounds like a great project! I just wanted to pipe in and see if you were connected with any Farm to ECE staff in your state? There is a really great network forming across the country. If not, I am happy to try and help find that connection! Please feel free to send me an email, at slindley@doe.in.gov. 

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Sophie Lindley
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