A Partnership that Makes School Gardens Grow

Trequan McGee cares about Agriculture and young people. He enjoys connecting both of these through service learning at some of our Guilford County schools with gardens.

 We connected with Trequan at NCA&T through Ms. Odile Hutchette’s   HORT 351- Practice in Sustainable Horticulture- class. It has a project with service-learning component. Here you see him with Ms Lubchenco’s 4^th grade class at Brooks Global Studies. They are learning about why to do square foot gardening.

Trequan is a great role model for these young students. He shares with them about his classes in horticulture and how he plans to get a graduate degree in plant breeding (and hopes to work his own small farm). He really enjoys answering their many questions.  Trequan will also work with 4^th and 5^th graders at Wiley El. and lead an activity at Jones Elementary’s family garden day Saturday March 30^th.

Thanks Tre!

*Trequan McGeePresident of Collegiate FFAPresident of Young Farmers and RanchersChairman of the DSACUndergraduate Representative for the SAES Advisory BoardUSDA Multicultural Scholar School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences North Carolina A&T State University

Lindley Elementary Garden Workday today!

Saturday was a cold but beautifully clear blue sky day. Lindley Elementary parents, students, and teachers came out to make short work of the garden work so necessary to the success of a spring garden. 

One more reminder of the plant and nature cycles. Lessons these students learn first hand! 

Lindley is one of the oldest, most successful school gardens in Guilford County. We treasure it!

Planting Day at Brooks Global Studies!

The entire school got to participate at Brooks Global Studies

 planting day on Wednesday!

The sunshine felt so good after the cold snowy winter days!

We used flour to mark our rows to put our seeds. We planted spinach, kale, radish, lettuce and carrot for our early spring garden. We will add marigolds to protect our plants from insects.

We also prepared trays of seeds for our Service learning projects.

We planted peas, beans, radish, spinach, kale and lettuce to share with our sister Schools: Cone, Jones, Foust, Gillespie, and Hampton which also have school gardens.

We will share stories about how the plants grow in our gardens this spring!

We can’t wait to see all the seeds grow into yummy plants!

Installing low hoop season extenders at Brooks Global Studies!

Brooks Global Sustainability garden just got the structures for season extenders installed last weekend! 

 Every bed can be protected from the freezing temperatures with frost protection fabric.

Clear plastic covers will be applied during the day time when needed to provide a greenhouse effect.

Sandra Lubchenco, AG teacher and Stem Garden Sustainability project leader at Brooks Global and Cynthia Nielsen School Garden Network Coordinator smile after completing the installation.

Thanks to our helpers/ husbands Bill and Nick!

Cooking with Greens, local Chef Josh Kenny Feb. 9th

Seed Exchange a big success last night at Coop Extension!

Had a great time with the EMGVs (Master Gardeners), community and school gardeners at the Seed Exchange last night at Cooperative Extension. Spring is just around the corner! Cynthia Nelsen, Guilford County School Garden Network Coordinator.

McLeansville receives a $5,000 Lowes Toolbox grant!

It’s always impressive to see a school do what it takes to start and then extend a school garden: McLeansville Elementary is doing this. And now they have received a Lowes Toolbox Grant to extend their garden!

With help from an enthusiastic and energetic crew, McLeansville's school garden went up last spring and is getting ready to grow! Master Gardener Mentor Carol Spratley, played a great supporting role along with a crew of teachers headed by 3rd/4th grade teacher Jamie Lee. Principal Shervawn Sockwell lends her strong support to the school gardening project.

Cherry tomato transplants were provided by Odile Huchette and Alex Wofford in the Reid Greenhouse at NCA&T as part of the Urban Ag program. Carol and Jamie attended our workshop in February and used the square foot gardening approach.

The whole student body is getting involved, here they are making observations in their journals of the their very own garden. We look forward to updates from this wonderful school as they expand their growing space with their support from Lowe's for their spring garden!