Sweetwater Garden

      Our vision for this project is to empower sustainability in our own community through education and community involvement. During the 2015-2016 school year parents, elementary students, high school students, staff, and community members of Sweetwater Elementary shared a similiar interest towards school gardening.  We began working with a local farm, Beckman Farms.  By January, 2015 we had a  hydroponic garden on our campus which grows vegetables and herbs. Environmental high school students from Spruce Creek High collaborated with a team of community members to plan out the phases of this project. Currently, parents and community members have the ability to sign up to receive produce on a weekly basis.  Elementary students will deliver this produce in boxes at the end of the day. Our long term goal is create a legacy in our community that grows over time with high school students and community members involved all throughout the process to increase ownership and long-term support. Our goal would be that in five years, we have increased the amount of produce and have 200 participants, either parents, students, and community members involved through purchasing, volunteering, or maintaining this project. Our other goal would be that in 2 years, a STEM program could become a part of the special area much like music, art, and PE and provide training and opportunities for students to be involved in the garden across all grade levels. 

     Sweetwater Garden uses hydroponics to grow because they use  as little as 1/20 the amount as a regular farm to produce the same amount of food.  The hydroponic system is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions without the use of soil. Their roots are in contact with the continuous flow of nutrient rich solutions that constantly flows past the roots from a storage tank that has the potential to serve a multitude of plants.