Smith Middle School

In our first year (2011-2012), we started with three 10 square foot raised garden beds to practice managing a sustainable community garden. We did not have an outside water source, so relied on filling 5 gallon buckets to get us through a dry, very hot summer. Since then, we re-established an outside water faucet, enabling us to triple the size of our garden. We now have 9 raised beds, 10 square feet each. Our next goal is to expand our garden, building a greenhouse in an interior courtyard area that can be accessible to students throughout the winter. A long-term goal has been to draw in our at-risk population, which has been difficult with a large part of gardening occurring over the summer, since we cannot get many of those students to the school. A greenhouse would allow us to reach those students and extend their understanding of healthy food choices throughout the winter.