Revolt against healthy lunches – http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/nyregion/healthier-school-lunches-face-student-rejection.html?pagewanted=all

School Gardens

Good write up on Rockrimmon Elementary Garden – http://www.waltpub.com/papers/we/wood%209-21-12.pdf

Misc Links

Colorado Healthy Kids Initiative – http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_21574850/feeding-children-healthy-habits

Food Hubs – http://localfoodshift.com/news/view?ID=4163&blog_id=1&pageVar=WpPosts_page&currentPage=1&type=global

Edible Landscapes – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KmKoj4RSZw&feature=em-subs_digest –

Hope you can plan on visiting some exemplary school gardens in the Pikes Peak region on Saturday, 9/15/2012. There will be gardens from the little ones to Colorado College, so there should be something for everyone. If you are looking to start a school garden, or trying to find a plot in a school/community garden in your area, or just wanting to see how gardens are being integrated into our community schools this is the tour for you.

Details are on the Garden Tour Page or at the Pikes Peak Regional Garden Tour Map.

Printable School Garden Tour Brochure

Anne Johnson pulled the volunteers and plan together with the help of Mary Gressler and the Manitou Elementary Staff. Manitou Food Service Director Paula Faucette had water, fruit, gorp, and Anne provided  some Lara Bars and those volunteers loved all those snacks.  During the event, Paula said she had enough funds to order pizza for everyone so she ordered 12 pizzas and those were a big hit!

Support from the Air Force Academy cadets and UCCS was superb! 24 showed up as well as 3 from UCCS–2 students and a spouse of a student.  All of them worked so hard and in 3 hours built 3 8′ x 8′ raised beds with manufactured brick into the hillside, cleaned up 6 or 7 existing beds and put gorilla mulch on those beds, trimmed the juniper bushes in front of the school, and raked an entire hillside above the parking lot of debris and carried buckets of pea gravel that had washed down that hillside back to the playground above the hillside.

A big thank you to all who participated from PPF2S! And a special thank you to Anne, Mary, and Paula for making it happen!

I was able to stop by and pick up burrito bowls last night…very impressive crowd! Thanks to all who came out to support it!

They are looking for ways to offset the water usage, so if you have any ideas, please pop over to their site and share!

Harrison High School garden a cooperative project of LiveWell Colorado Springs, Pikes Peak Urban Gardens, and the YMCA of the Pikes Peak Region.  The urban farm produced approximately 811 pounds – donated to Care and Share Food Bank  (rainbow chard, carrots, green beans, potatoes, onions, squash, zucchini, pumpkins, herbs) Thirty  plots for community members and businesses grew tomatoes, eggplants, green beans, lettuce, potatoes, flowers, and herbs. There are also fruit trees–peach, apple and cherry.

Wasson High School.  Program developed and maintained by teacher, Dolores Higgins with the assistance of Slow Food Colorado Springs which helped with building the raised beds.  Dolores Higgins also teaches an honors Horticulture class at Wasson.

Manitou Elementary School.  Garden started and maintained by school librarian with assistance of students.  They also have a ‘woolly’ school garden to grow edible vine plants, herbs, and berries indoors  “ We have a solarium that acts beautifully as a greenhouse.  Our problem was not enough floor space but oodles of vertical space.  Woolly Pockets will fulfill our wellness and summer garden needs indoors.”

Galileo Middle School.  Currently houses a geodesic dome where produce is grown for the Good Food Project at D11 under supervision of PPUG.  Currently NOT a student garden.  The District is considering a proposal for an extensive sustainable garden surrounding the greenhouse.

Rockrimmon Elementary.  The garden was the brainchild of Michele Davis, a first-grade teacher. In 2010, she found an accomplice in parent Mary Emily Nelson, who had recently moved to the area.

“Our garden was born out of a need to teach kids about where food comes from.”  At least 60 kids are involved in the Rockrimmon Garden Club but every class has visited the garden. The young gardeners said it’s definitely worth all the work, adding that the experience is something all kids should have. When the project came together, kids applied for and received a $5,000 Green Grant from the district that they may seek again.

The garden now boasts a beautiful donated fenced garden with approximately 30 raised beds, about a third of which are rented to community members.  They also have composting and worked with Eagle Scouts to build a small outdoor amphitheater for classes, etc.  A gardening after school club takes care of the garden during the school year and over the summer.  As with most school districts, all volunteers and those renting community gardening plots, go through the volunteer screening process with the district.

Woodmen Roberts Elementary is in the process of putting together a community garden at their school.

Foothills Elementary is also in the organizing phase for their school garden.

A common denominator in these examples is one passionate person who persevered to insure the project came to fruition.  Research shows that those gardens are most apt to succeed when local school community members and neighborhood residents are involved and create a sense of community around the garden.