Academe of the Oaks Learning Garden

Academe of the Oaks has had a large organic vegetable garden since its inception in 2003 and every year the school improves the gardens and informal outdoor spaces to enhance its conservation and garden-based learning programs as well as provide students with beautiful spaces that catalyze social interaction and collaborative learning.  

Garden spaces at Academe of the Oaks include a small, private Tuscan garden adjacent to the loft where the entrance is through a vine-covered arbor and the small courtyard is flanked by benches and surrounded by herbs and roses.  Several years ago the school cleared a wooded area overgrown with invasive plants using a large herd of goats and sheep, constructed a small pond and planted native shrubs and fruit trees.

In early 2015 the school created a pollinator garden through a grant from The Environmental Education Alliance of Georgia (EEA) that is now a certified pollinator habitat with Monarchs Across Georgia, a certified Monarch Waystation though Monarch Watch and is a member of the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail. 

The school keeps a number of honeybee hives, a flock of chickens and three Nubian goats.  Garden waste, compostable food and animal bedding are composted using thermophilic, vermicomposting or black soldier fly composting methods and the finished compost is used to enhance the soil on campus. The school's garden program, according to representatives from the EEA and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service during a site visit, is one of the most integrated school gardens they had ever visited.