Growing School Food Gardens

This is my 15th year as the environmental education teacher and keeper of the Kimbark gardens.  Each year we strive to plant our summer garden a little later than most for 2 reasons: one, our California summer growing season lasts well into late september-early October, and 2, the school year begins in early august.  Planting later allows us to have a wonderfully full garden when students return to school.  

This year, our students explored planting seeds and creating miniature greenhouses out of milk jugs and plastic containers.  We began planting in late February and March, and boy were we successful.  We had our hands full of pumpkin and squash as well as pepper seedlings.  So what does one do when her students have had a successful winter of seed starting?  Planting those seedlings, of course!  So in late May we moved our babies to the garden area, and while we were at it, we planted cucumbers, tomatoes, and melons to fill our planter boxes!

All summer long with the help of my agricultural college student son and a few dedicated teachers and community members, we watered, weeded and loved on those baby plants.   And do you know what happened?   In July our pumpkins, peppers and cucumbers were all ripe for the picking!  The dilemma of a successful harvest is only that the most excited members of our school were still on summer break.  Thankfully, the tomatoes, melons, and lettuce were a little late to the party!

What to do, what to do!  While the pumpkins will hold their composure for longer than most veggies, we were most concerned with our cucumbers.  In our attempts to save as much produce as possible, we took to pickling and cooking.  I had no idea how easy cucumbers become pickles.  So 40 pounds of cucumbers became many jars of pickles to which I have taste tested on teachers and students alike since school started.  All of our critics have agreed that homemade pickles are far better than store bought, and even our little TK folk had fun using their senses to describe the sour, salty, crunchy and even yucky nature of our cucumbers turned pickles. 

The moral of this story is that timing really does matter when it comes to summer, school gardens and students.  As we move forward with plans for our 2025 school garden, I will remember that while students enjoy the planting and caring of seeds, they delight much more in the harvest of those summer crops.  All is not lost as we move forward with zucchini and pumpkin bread baking and salsa making.  I might have jumped the garden gun a bit, but students still found joy in the discovery of what was left growing and what had begun to decay.  Happy gardening to all of you!

Hi Jacqueline, I came across your older post but I am so intrigued by your recipes! What was the consensus on the canned pickles? It always seems like canning then makes them a little mushy. I heard adding a leaf from grapes could help with canning them. Anyways thanks for sharing your recipes, I will definitely give the pickles a try this summer. 

This is my 15th year as the environmental education teacher and keeper of the Kimbark gardens.  Each year we strive to plant our summer garden a little later than most for 2 reasons: one, our California summer growing season lasts well into late september-early October, and 2, the school year begins in early august.  Planting later allows us to have a wonderfully full garden when students return to school.  

This year, our students explored planting seeds and creating miniature greenhouses out of milk jugs and plastic containers.  We began planting in late February and March, and boy were we successful.  We had our hands full of pumpkin and squash as well as pepper seedlings.  So what does one do when her students have had a successful winter of seed starting?  Planting those seedlings, of course!  So in late May we moved our babies to the garden area, and while we were at it, we planted cucumbers, tomatoes, and melons to fill our planter boxes!

All summer long with the help of my agricultural college student son and a few dedicated teachers and community members, we watered, weeded and loved on those baby plants.   And do you know what happened?   In July our pumpkins, peppers and cucumbers were all ripe for the picking!  The dilemma of a successful harvest is only that the most excited members of our school were still on summer break.  Thankfully, the tomatoes, melons, and lettuce were a little late to the party!

What to do, what to do!  While the pumpkins will hold their composure for longer than most veggies, we were most concerned with our cucumbers.  In our attempts to save as much produce as possible, we took to pickling and cooking.  I had no idea how easy cucumbers become pickles.  So 40 pounds of cucumbers became many jars of pickles to which I have taste tested on teachers and students alike since school started.  All of our critics have agreed that homemade pickles are far better than store bought, and even our little TK folk had fun using their senses to describe the sour, salty, crunchy and even yucky nature of our cucumbers turned pickles. 

The moral of this story is that timing really does matter when it comes to summer, school gardens and students.  As we move forward with plans for our 2025 school garden, I will remember that while students enjoy the planting and caring of seeds, they delight much more in the harvest of those summer crops.  All is not lost as we move forward with zucchini and pumpkin bread baking and salsa making.  I might have jumped the garden gun a bit, but students still found joy in the discovery of what was left growing and what had begun to decay.  Happy gardening to all of you!