Garden Synergy at General Greene Elementary!

I want to share some happy news about gardening at General Greene Elementary. For the past couple years, gardening activities have run independently on parallel tracks with little communication between projects. After various conversations with parent volunteers, teachers, and NCA&T project coordinator and director; everyone is now in touch and working well together to meet common goals.

Dr. Manuel Reyes and his graduate student Le Ngoc Kieu  are using garden beds at General Greene to study conservation techniques as they effect soil conservation and fertility. Ms Kieu has been working with Science Specialist Dana Apple’s students in the garden planting various vegetable plants.

Holly Bell and Kelly Sham are parent volunteers who have been using the wonderful Greenhouse to grow seedlings for various projects at the school. Master Garden Volunteer Barbara Culpepper is also lending her services to the school’s efforts to develop its gardening program. Kelly will be offering his labor watering this summer for the conservation beds and looks forward to working with the folk from A&T and including students in gardening plans for next school year.

The following photos and description are from Kelly, he has some very important information to share! 

We have been working to get the pond back in shape.  It had sort of turned into something more like a swamp.  One set of pics shows how it looked shortly after we started cleaning it and how it looks today. 

One set of pics shows the waterfall before and after I shut everything down, pulled the pump and cleaned it, cleaned all the filters and back flushed the system this weekend.

And the other set just has some general pics of stuff around the green house.  Please notice the black widow spider and egg sac.  This one was under the filter and pump lid for the pond.  I have seen four different ones around the green house, garden and pond!  Please tell everyone to be careful when they are reaching into places.  I've been opening compost bins, lids, etc. and then I stand back and look for a minute before I reach in.

Sumner Elementary has got it's garden going!

Shared by Katina Peace Perry, Sumner Counselor with support from Sumner's principal, Thyais Maxwell.

We are excited to finally get our gardens started.  We did purchase some mature plants as recommended by the Tarheel gardening ladies.

Kimberly Smith, ACES director, Sharon Funderburk, Jessica Cassell, Martina Holt, ACES teachers, assisted students in the after-school program in planting herbs  and vegetables in the raised beds. These students also planted flowers in the main courtyard.  These activities culminated their Earth Day unit of study.

The ACES students conducted a community survey which concluded that schools need to keep their campuses clean and orderly. They used campus beautification and clean up in response to the data from the survey to decide how to design their gardens.
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Gillespie Park Elementary school is up and Gardening!

Deborah Blackwood, resource teacher, Nancy Straghan, kindergarten teacher, and Silvana Mazo, media specialist, along with support from Principal Joseph Stone have begun the first vegetable plantings this past week in their newly constructed raised beds! they've come a long way since our initial discussions in the fall!

If you've started up or made additions to your school garden, let us know through pictures!

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FoodCorps tour of HIgh Point school gardens!

A number of us toured three of the nine school gardens in High Point where the FoodCorps service members Leah Klaproth and Eliza Hudson have really made a positive difference for students. It was a beautiful blue sky day as much of our spring has been this year. I've included a few pictures with students when school was in session.







Schools toured were Parkview, Johnston St. and Kirkman Park.

Thank you Leah and Eliza for all that you do!

Smith High School Science Students Celebrate Earth Week with garden science experiments

Mr. Abraha, chemistry teacher, and Cynthia Nielsen, School Garden Network Coordinator, joined Mrs. Connie Mitchell's Environmental Science class in Smith High School's raised bed garden plots to set up their experiments to determine the effect of different variables on plant growth.

 "Plants and food are a big part of our lives here on planet earth" said one freshman in explaining why what they are studying in the garden relates to Earth Week.

Students varied one of the following factors in 1/2 of each of the 4'x8' beds while leaving the other half as a control: water, fertilizer, plant spacing and plant type. Students will measure and compare plant growth outcomes over the next six weeks.

They will share the results with us and other high school's science classes. Funding from an enrichment grant and plant donations from Home Depot to Mr. Abraha helped underwrite this research.

 Mr. Abraha says their next project will be to work with a Biology teacher and students on other plant growth factors. 

We will follow their progress and report back to you!    

Peeler Open Performing Arts Garden Tour!

 Sunday's School Garden tour of Peeler Performing Arts Magnet School was a lovely mix of the artistic creativity Peeler staff and students are famous for and the wonderful garden that surrounds the school buildings. 

There were seven stations including tasting, pot making, composting with vermiculture, garden tool use, tours around the campus, and tree planting prep in honor of Earth day today. 

Art work abounded on paper and in the new amphitheater.

Peeler staff including Principal Harris, teachers, parents, students and many members of the community joined together to celebrate this wonderful school with a very impressive garden!

What a great community!

Grill-Out Fundraiser for School Garden Network at Whole Foods Market a Great Success!

Thanks to each and every one of you who attended our Grill-Out at Whole Foods Market Friday, we had a big turnout in spite of the WIND! Whole Foods Market Friendly Center also raffled off an awesome grill with proceeds going to SGN Saturday!



Look forward to our %5 day September 18th at Whole Foods Market Friendly Center to support School Garden Network. We are so happy to have the support of the folks at this wonderful market; let's make a point of shopping Whole Foods whenever we get a chance!