Ellis Elementary

Garden Leader: Donna Baker-Breningstall – donna_baker-breningstall@dpsk12.org

The garden program at Ellis Elementary was recently re-started by Donna Baker-Breningstall, beginning with working 4 of the 16 beds in the Denver Urban Garden located on our school site. Although the community garden has been here for years, there has not been much school involvement recently. We worked with the kids to grow tomatoes, peppers, string beans, zucchini, squash and eggplant in our four 4×12 foot beds. We participated in the Garden to Cafeteria program where numerous groups of students harvested vegetables and then they were added to our salad bar.

We have benefitted from some small donations from local merchants and seeds and plants from Slow Food Denver’s Seed to Table Alliance. The Ellis garden was the recipient of 2 grants which paid for a beautiful hand crafted 3 bin compost system and a number of garden tools. We hope to build a new watering system in the near future.

Our big challenge is drumming up interest in our program, which will begin its second year in 2011. We now have a composting site and a garden sink and hope to integrate the garden program into classroom learning. Volunteers are needed to take kids out into the garden, teaching them about growing food, garden maintenance and the natural rhythms of the garden year.