Gardening At School, Growing Healthy Kids

Whenever a young person learns to garden, the future grows a little more green and healthy. When an entire school learns to garden together, sustainability sprouts in the imaginations of tomorrows community.  This spring, Giving Tree Gardens worked with the Anoka-Hennepin School District to teach some of the basics of Earth- friendly food gardening to students at two schools in the district.  We had so much fun working with students and staff that we’ve just got to share the good times with the rest of the world.

Imagine what our communities would look like today, if all of us as kids had the opportunity to learn to grow our own food at school.  Instead of learning to grow food, the daily school lunch is the most engaging and oft repeated lesson that our kids get about food.  What is that lesson?

It was an honor for us at Giving Tree to be invited to garden with the students at Mississippi Elementary and Northdale Middle School in Coon Rapids.  Composting, edible weeds, the importance of avoiding chemicals, soil preparation, seed planting, native plants, habitat creation, and companion planting were the subjects of 3 all day gardening classes.  School staff and teachers brought the students out in shifts.  Over 400 students were able to get their hands dirty digging in to learn how to grow healthy food and habitat.

At Mississippi Elementary we built on a theme that we had started last year when we extended the garden installation within the schools Nature Center to include 6 crescent moon shaped garden beds.  Every grade came out to plant, and each got their own garden bed to prepare and plant with different companion planting arrangements.  Within each bed we also planted one native butterfly attracting plant so that we made sure to grow habitat for our winged friends along the way.

At Northdale Middle school we worked with 7th and 8th grade students in the schools AVID program to plant a highly accessible veggie garden and two fruit trees right out the back door.  Plants were all arranged in companionship groupings, and both the apple and pear tree that were planted were given their best friend plants of dill and mint to grow by.  Some of the students were very impressive with their strong knowledge about organic vegetable gardening!

Both of these school projects were funded by SHIP grants (State Health Improvement Program) from the State of Minnesota Health Department.  These grants are designed to “help Minnesotans live longer, healthier lives.” Gardening for medicinal and edible plants as well as sustainable habitat development are among the most effective long term strategies we have available for increasing health in our communities.

Imagine how healthy our children would be if all of our schools had organic student led gardens to grow even half of the food the kids eat for lunch.  Thanks to the SHIP grants, and the imaginative staff in the Anoka-Hennepin Schools and school district, we have planted the seeds of healthy change in a couple of local schools.

Garden Installation

Giving Tree Gardens professional landscape and garden installation service crew work closely with our clients and with our garden designer Russ Henry to install award winning organic gardens.

The landscape installation services team at Giving Tree Gardens aim to make as little negative impact on the land as they can while landscaping installations take place

We use hand tools whenever possible and we keep our foot traffic to a minimum.  Our organic gardens and landscapes are installed so that they will have all they need to grow healthy and full, and our organic garden installation services are designed around our clients needs and dreams.

Eat Your Weedies

Eeyore

said it best,

“A weed is a flower too, once you get to know it.”

The dandelion for instance.  How many of us are completely unaware of the untamed beauty of this plant? 

Providing free nourishing food, and medicine for passers by, offering soil fertility, and perfect plant companionship for tomatoes and other shallow rooted crops, and all of this in a form that is simple, ruggedly beautiful, and completely unstoppable.  

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Nature utilizes weeds to perform functions that are often beyond our capacity to easily grasp.  In an abandoned lot for instance, our hero the dandelion will drive roots into the earth allowing minerals and nutrients from deep in the ground to be accessed by other shallow rooted plants.  The channels made in the ground by dandelions roots also help drive water and air downward increasing the overall capacity for root depth and allowing water to enter the water table instead of rushing off to damage local creeks, rivers, or lakes.

Let's all yank from the root the damaging notion that some plants are evil.  Instead let's see beauty, life, and nourishment wherever we can.

Dandelion, (Taraxacum)

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If you were offered a hardy perennial plant that bloomed all season, was entirely edible, could be used for medicine, helped shallow rooted crops like tomatoes grow stronger, and provided habitat for bees and butterflies would you think I was crazy for even suggesting that such a plant exists?  Sure you would if you were unaware of the amazing super powers of the Dandelion.

Now the English name dandelion is a corruption of the French dent de lion meaning "lion's tooth", referring to the coarsely toothed leaves.  The shape of the leaf is hardly the most notable part of this plant.  I’d have to agree that taraxacum is a lion among plants, but given all this plant offers the world I think it’s time for a new name.  Terrific-lion seems much better suited then dandelion ever was.

Terrific-lion grows everywhere, the leaves are yummy and full of vitamins A, C, and K.  The root makes a tea that can help with liver detoxification.

Creeping Charlie, (Glechoma hederacea)

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Speaking of poorly named plants…. wow, I sure don’t think I’d want to meet anyone whose nickname was creeping charlie, but then sometimes when we get to know a person we realize that our ideas about who they are don’t always match reality.  Such is the case with dear charlie.

Europeans who traditionally used it as food and medicine imported creeping charlie to America.  In days of old, people would eat the plant fresh and cooked and put it to use also as a flavoring and clarifying agent in beer.

Lately, while speaking with a landscaping client who happens to be one of the world’s foremost experts on herbal treatments for autism in children, I was amazed to learn about the magic, magnetic nature of plants and people.

The swing set in my clients’ back yard is the preferred hang out for her young daughter who due in part to high mercury content in her blood lives with the effects of autism.  As an herbalist, my client, Lise Wolf, had been introduced to the notion that plants are attracted to those creatures that they can help heal and nurture.  One day Lise noticed an interesting phenomenon.  The creeping charlie in her back lawn was growing from all directions toward her daughter’s swing set.  The growth pattern was so pronounced that the creeping charlie was actually climbing the supports of the swing set in lieu the rest of her yard.  As soon as she noticed this pattern the herbalist in her took over and she set to researching the association between creeping charlie and heavy metals in the blood.  What she found was inspiring.

Creeping charlie  has been used since the introduction of lead based paints in Europe to treat what was known as “painter’s colic”, or lead poisoning, and modern herbalists swear by it’s use for treating heavy metal poisoning.  Since finding this information Lise has been using dear old creeping charlie to effectively reduce mercury levels in her daughter and the other kids she helps.

Charlie should also not be discounted as an important pollinator food source.  During the spring and summer, an organic lawn covered in creeping charlie and white clover is a foraging bee and butterfly buffet.

So while charlie does creep his way through the garden, his popular nickname would tend to leave a gardener feeling creeped out, and given how terrific Charlie is, I say it’s time we give this fine friend a new nickname.  Good Time Charlie used to make us sing the garden blues, but now that he’s better understood I’m sure we’ll all be singing a different tune.

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Lamb's Quarters (Chenopodim album)

Grows like crazy, and tastes like spinach.  These are the outstanding traits of lamb’s quarters.  The list of minerals and nutrients available from lamb’s quarters are almost as long as it’s list of common names.  Aside from Lamb's quarters, this plant is known world wide as every thing from goosefoot, fat-hen, nickel greens, and pigweed, to the nicknames, which denote it’s preference for compost piles, dungweed, and my personal favorite, dirty dick.

While the nickname dirty dick works wonders at wiggling the giggle out of folks, it only tells half the story.  This plant is nutritious, and that’s not dirty, that’s delicious!  Delicious Dick is the new nickname for this strong, upright, freely seeding weed.  You’ll find new dinner delights with Delicious Dick in your dish!

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Terrific-lions, Good Time Charlie, and Delicious Dick are all right outside your door!  A buffet of heroic plants ready to please your pallet, and these three are just the beginning.  Wood Sorrel, Burdock, Chickweed, Violets, Daylillies, Garlic Mustard, Milk Thistle, Plantain, Purslain, and Nettle are a few of the other heroes of health that grow freely all around us here in Minnesota and Wisconsin.