Get Ready!

Before you start creating your garden, we encourage you to create a " Garden Plan ." This can take the form of a Google Doc, a Powerpoint presentation, or a bunch of handwritten notes and lists that you keep stored in a folder somewhere. It really doesn't matter how you do it, just make a plan and have it somewhere that is easy to access, and easy to reproduce so you can share it with others.

Your plan should answer the following questions.

  1. Why are you doing this ?
  2. What are your Objectives?
  3. What type of garden will you plant (Tower vs. containers)
  4. What will you plant in your garden
  5. An outline of your Budget and Resources
  6. Communication strategy for notifying parents, teachers, community.
  7. A practical Action Plan (The actual roll out plan for building, planting, maintaining, harvesting and celebrating your garden)

Below, you'll find a list of a few general pointers that will be helpful along the way.

A FEW GENERAL TIPS:

  • As with anything that involves collaboration, remember that communication is key. Communication with your students, other teachers, administrators, school janitors, cafeteria staff, and parents will be integral to the success of your classroom garden. Share your plans with the community (school community or community at large) so that everyone feels included.
  • As this will inevitably be a group effort, having the support of everyone involved (and everyone in the community) will make things go a lot smoother.
  • Gardens take work! This is not an overnight project. It will likely take weeks (maybe even months) before your students see major progress, so set realistic expectations right from the start to avoid disappointment.
  • Be open to a few changes in the game plan. Maybe your plan was to grow an amazing herb garden, because you want to teach your students how to make pesto sauce and then tie that into an awesome geography lesson on Italy... but then your basil plants decide not to sprout and the whole thing falls apart. Take a deep breath, and remember that it's going to be okay! Use unexpected upsets like that to teach students about the reality that plants are living organisms--some will thrive and others will die, not necessarily due to neglect or mismanagement, but just because life happens! That's just the name of the game.