Planning Your School Garden Program
Start with a team! Most successful school gardens across the state have one or more "garden champions" that help to keep the project rolling. Parent and community volunteers, dedicated teachers and administrators, paid garden coordinators, and motivated student groups can all serve the role of "garden champions".
Here are some of the best resources to help you plan, start and sustain your school garden program.
Our Resources
- GARDENS FOR LEARNING: Chapter 2 - Planning Your School Garden
- GARDENS FOR LEARNING: Chapter 6 - Finding Supplies and Funding Your Garden
- GARDENS FOR LEARNING: Chapter 9 - Sustaining Your Garden
- CSGN.org on Finding Supplies and Budgeting
CSYSG TRAINING HANDOUTS:
More Resources
School Garden Planning Downloads
- A Garden in Every School Video Training Guide by Keep Iowa Beautiful covers every step of creating an educational garden with helpful videos and handouts.
- Getting Started: A Guide for Creating School Gardens as Outdoor Classrooms covers building school-wide support and buy-in, community involvement, fundraising, volunteers, and garden coordinators, in English and Spanish (created by Life Lab and Center for Ecoliteracy)
- The School Garden Wizard covers creating a vision, building your team, and getting funds, budgeting, and supplies (created by Chicago Botanic Garden)
- Plant a Seed, Watch it Grow covers building your team, fundraising, material donations, and volunteers. (created by the Master Gardener Association of San Diego County)
- School Garden Start-Up Guide gives a brief overview of planning and garden team building in English and Spanish. This resource is less comprehensive but it can be easier to start your research with a more simplified overview. (from UC Cooperative Extension, Los Angeles County)
- SlowFood USA School Garden Manual
- Growing, Eating, Living: A Garden Guide for Head Start covers planning, garden care by young children, and parent involvement for pre-school gardens from California Head Start Association
- Starting a Preschool Garden A two-page menu of options from Growing Gardens.
Published Books on Creating School Garden Programs
- Digging Deeper: Integrating Youth Gardens into Schools and Communities, by Joseph Kiefer and Martin Kemple
- Steps to a Bountiful Kids’ Garden by Amy Gifford, Spanish edition available
- Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation by Sharon Danks
- How to Grow a School Garden: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers by Arden Bucklin-Sporer and Rachel Kathleen Pringle
- The Growing Classroom By Robbie Jaffee
CSYSG Workshop Downloads
Building A Support Network Developing A Shared Vision Goal Planning_Breaking It Down To Build It Up Thinking Ahead-setting Your Garden Goals Year Round Garden Guidelines & Tasks Garden Budget