Growing Together

 We are a public charter Montessori school located in the San Francisco Bay Area and established in 2002.  Our school garden started as just one raised bed and now houses ten raised beds of edibles including culinary herbs and seasonal vegetables, in addition to over a dozen fruit trees, a greenhouse, and native and drought tolerant shrubs.  All students at the school have an hour or more of garden time each week and take care of the routine maintenance ncluding watering, weeding, mulching and other chores as necessary.  The garden is maintained organically  with no chemical fertilizers and of course no herbicides or pesticides. We have a weekly farmers' market on campus where some of the garden bounty is harvested by students and purchased by school families.  Monthly garden work parties invite families to the garden and allow students time to share the garden with their parents.  School events often include student-led garden tours as well and students love to show off their knowledge of the assorted plants and their uses. Students plant seedlings and plant sales are held quarterly to allow students the opportunity to buy a plant to take home and grow, which they are especially excited about over summer break - this program is called Plant Parenthood.  School waste is sorted by a weekly wastebusters team to reduce waste and food scraps are composted on site in a triple-stage system, with the resulting compost returning to the garden.  Vermicompost is also set and compost tea is one the student's favorite activities.  Each students adopts a tree at the beginning of the school year and is responsible for tending to that tree during the year and charting its growth.  Thanks to the Whold Kids Foundation, new this year are Taste Tests and our recent first event had over 75% of the students participating in sampling several different citruses.  Coming this spring:  berry tasting, and the students are very excited.