Raising the Standard : At the Greenville school in Santa Ana, gardens elevate the study of life sciences to a fresh level. In beds at home, the same math applies.
Reading, writing, arithmetic and gardening are part of the curriculum for the 924 students at Greenville Fundamental School in Santa Ana, thanks to the efforts of Marian Taylor, a former science teacher and Master Gardener in training.
Courtyard gardens on the school grounds that had contained conventional plantings of ficus and other ornamental plants have been converted over the past two years into life labs--learning environments for students to gain firsthand knowledge of nature and plants.
“We renovated overgrown landscape areas in six courtyard gardens and transformed them into theme gardens in which the children play an active role,” Taylor said.
They serve as the basis of a child-focused, hands-on learning environment in which the children, in kindergarten through fifth grade, learn about life sciences.
Additional planting areas and raised beds will be added by the end of this year so that, in all, 30 distinct gardens will contain themed gardens, raised beds for vegetables and flower displays along bungalow classrooms.
Taylor of Santa Ana had been an elementary school teacher at Greenville for 15 years. She retired in 1994 but returned in 1995 when the school needed a part-time teacher for science demonstration projects.
She works at Greenville two days a week and volunteers there as a Master Gardener for a third day. She is assisted in the gardens by Faye Kill, a science teacher at the school, and Mary Ann Leonard, another Master Gardener in training.
Master Gardeners is a national organization of gardeners who, in return for intense gardening and horticultural training, volunteer their time and expertise to community gardening projects.
The Orange County Master Gardeners program is conducted through the Orange County Cooperative Extensive, and the UC Irvine and the Fullerton Arboretum.
At Greenville, children learn about soils, plants, animals and the environment by working in the gardens in addition to formal classroom instruction.
In Mr. McGregor’s Garden, the design and plantings faithfully re-create the setting of Beatrix Potter’s perennially popular story of Peter Rabbit. Children can enter the garden gate and walk through a pathway leading them to a garden pool like the one where White Cat watched the swimming fish, the blackberry patch and the vegetable bed.
In the Animal Annex, kids can interact with four laying hens--Smoky, Shadow, Olympia and Flame--who were hatched in a classroom a year ago. Surrounding their meticulously clean enclosed pen is a garden planted with some of their favorite foods--various types of lettuce, nasturtiums, chayote and chard, which he children feed to the hends.
The hens’ shavings and manure are regularly collected and composted in another section of the hexagonal bed and are used to fertilize the soil in which the vegetables are grown.
A Sensory Garden is designed to excite the senses of taste, touch and smell with herbs of mint, sage, oregano, thyme and marjoram. The velvety leaves of lamb’s ears encourage the children to touch the gray-hued plant, as do lavender and lemon geranium.
The gardens at Greenville recently won a Youth Garden Grant from the National Gardening Assn. Two thousand children’s gardening programs nationwide were evaluated by the association. Greenville was one of those selected to receive $700 worth of tools, seeds and garden products donated by various national companies in support of the NGA program.
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Gardens in contained areas such as courtyards or raised beds also give gardeners better control of the overall environment. Soils are usually well-conditioned and worked so plants grow more vigorously and weeds are more easily controlled.
A bonus is that, as the name implies, raised-bed gardening means that the plants are elevated above surrounding ground level, usually by a foot, which is the height of the wood used in the beds’ construction. Weary gardeners don’t have to bend over so much.
Confining plants to raised beds also makes it easier to keep out scavenging animals or curious pets.
Master Gardener Janet Meade and her husband, Keith, constructed three raised beds at their Yorba Linda home. The beds, used for growing vegetables and herbs, are densely planted and easy to maintain.
“We have a pet rabbit named Bunny who has access to our garden, so we wanted to protect her and our plants by putting them in an area beyond her reach,” Meade said.
Most raised beds are handmade from redwood, but the Meades selected cedar because redwood contains oils that are harmful to rabbits, which are inclined to gnaw on the wood. They also bunny-proofed the plants by securing chicken wire a few feet high to the sides of the wood along the top edge. The Meades can remove the wire when they work in the beds and easily install it again when Bunny is on the prowl.
Each of their raised beds is 8 feet long and 4 1/2 feet wide. Each is constructed with wood benches on which the Meades can sit while they tend the gardens.
“It’s important that the beds are no deeper than approximately four feet because you want to be able to reach in halfway or more for maintenance,” she added.
The benches are also convenient for Bunny, who hops up and nibbles the succulent greens of sugar peas or carrot tops as they poke through the chicken wire. But the harvest is plentiful, and the Meades don’t mind sharing with friends and pets.
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To Make a Raised Bed With Seating
1. Select a level area that gets at least six hours of sunlight daily.
2. Measure an area 8 feet long and 4 1/2 feet wide. Prepare the soil by removing existing vegetation and working the soil to a depth of 12 inches. Add compost or organic amendments and mix in well with a shovel or rototiller.
3. You can use pre-cut lumber in lengths of 8 feet and 4 1/2 feet. Two 8-foot lengths are joined to the 4 1/2-foot pieces by braces, attached inside the bed.
4. Drill holes and fasten the braces to the wood with brass screws.
5. Fasten two additional 8-foot lengths of wood as benches by nailing in at least five places.
6. For watering, you can add a drip irrigation system or a soaker hose or manually use a hose-end sprinkler.
7. To plant, add additional planting mix and garden soil, thoroughly combined, so soil is almost level with bench. If you want to garden organically, mix in aged manure. If you plan to use conventional fertilizer, you can work in a balanced granular fertilizer formulated for vegetables, according to package directions.
8. You can plant in quadrants or in rows. Janet Meade suggests devoting a quadrant to herbs, chives, shallots, garlic and one or two tomato plants. You can plant radishes and carrots in rows. Carrots grow especially well in raised beds and develop strong, straight roots.
9. For climbing plants such as peas and beans, construct a bamboo tee pee or fasten a trellis to one side of the planter for support.
Source: JANET MEADE
