Get a garden + the Ranger program in your school now. We have built over 100 in Los Angeles. We move rapidly. We take care of the permits. We make it ridiculously affordable. We are frugal. We can take on existing gardens and we know how to fix things.
You want your group volunteer day to actually mean something? You want lasting impact? We are so busy, we can guarantee almost any date you choose. You want to see results.
HUMANS
It is easy to help out. We are in 100 Los Angeles schools weekly and we care for our 100 gardens 332 days per year. If you want to help , we will put you to work. We are growing so rapidly that no matter what you have to offer, we likely need your talents. Engage today. Volunteer tomorrow.
For Our Garden Rangers
SCHOOL GARDENING?
OUR VALUES
In March, Gardner scientists took Masaru Emoto’s water crystal experiment and started a plant experiment. They had six different studies running at once. The experiments as follows: Plants that receive positive words Plants that receive negative words Plants that is in the sun but gets no water Plants that receive water but no sunlight Plants that are…
Who thinks are gross? Not us! Worms have five hearts, are blind, and have no noses but who else makes the best compost with little fuss? In March, Arroyo Seco learned about worms, what they like to eat, and about vermicompost. It’s easy to build a vermicompost. You can buy a plastic bin, makes hole…
The garden at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Downey is doing great! There is a variety of seedlings growing and students continue to help with composting.
Flowers, Flowers, everywhere!
Spring is (definitely) here! Well, “spring”– it was quite hot in DTLA for the last few weeks. Our class with Academy Leadership Community (ALC) at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex is in the early afternoon so we can feel that heat! Of course, these kind of things are always a good opportunity for learning and teaching–…
Mid City Prescott – April 9th and 17th: More planting, prepping, pruning + GRUBS!
Hola! Spring break 2019 is here for LAUSD, and at MCP we are excited and ready for all the crops to start thriving within the next few weeks. This week decided to spent two days at the (coolest) school farm since won’t access to it next week. Efforts were dedicated to ensure the correct operation…
Carson Gore Academy hasn’t had a tumbler up until now, but we’ve still been going over the fundamentals of composting. The kids were eager to get started and our new green pails have been employed to help keep things separated. Banana peels and apple cores from breakfast are being brought to the garden by the…
The more we compost, the more “texture” get in our edible garden at home. https://web.extension.illinois.edu/homecompost/benefits.cfm “Incorporating compost into soil dramatically improves soil structure. Soil structure refers to how inorganic particles (sand, silt, clay) combine with decayed organic particles (compost, humus). Soil with good structure has a crumbly texture, drains well, retains some moisture, and is…
This Los Angeles version of spring is upon us, preemptively sending lettuces to bolt, premature marigolds to flower, and beans to pack-it-in. We’ve sadly had to watch (and taste) our super sweet snap peas go from juicy candy to cellulose-y seed bombs, but behold!—our leafy greens—rainbow chard, lacinato kale, and purple kale have become…
Longer days mean that here in Los Angeles we have officially switched over from one planting season to the next. For my veteran students there is no question as to what changes are taking place out in the garden! They know that flowering plants mean it’s time to take note and start saving those seeds.…
We loooooove exploring creatures in our garden and when the kindergarteners come out the first thing the want to look for are….bugs!!! So naturally, our inclination is to properly explain the delicate ecosystem that is existing in our very own school garden. The three Ps are easy to break down! Pests, pollinators and predators…
At Primary Academy we enjoyed all the six parts of the plants and learned how to spell them as well! You have to be creative in the garden. It is easy to think of your favorite edible treat in the garden, but is it easy to identify what part of the plant it belongs to?…
Micheltorena’s garden has gone through a lot of changes in two months. We had a full-on winter garden, where we grew herbs, celery, carrots and lettuce. Then we had so much water that some of our seeds didn’t sprout, it was a challenging time because we couldn’t get the seeds to germinate due to the…
I recently started working at Toluca Lake and I have to say, aside from the kids and staff being so wonderful they really are inquisitive. I’ve been challenging the kids with some lessons that I initially thought were out of their scope and boy, did they prove me wrong in the best ways! We wanted…
During the beginning of this year, we had some pretty big goals. The first to increase our composting and second to start recycling at the lunch line. I think for a minute everyone agreed we were all crazy for attempting to change the automated culture of disposing our food. Composting in theory is wonderful, but…
Glenfeliz Elementary School under the leadership of Principal Karen Sulahian and Tahereh Sheerazie, Garden Ranger and a dedicated faculty not only started a composting program but asked enrichla to expand the composting facilities to make room for more. This school and it’s students are an example to us all. More than 50 percent of garbage in…
A Taste of Garden
This week for our final kindergarten classes we talked about the different parts of plants and then had tastings of various parts of plants that we eat. We ate carrot roots, celery stems, broccoli flowers, and spinach and Swiss chard leaves. Most of us liked carrots, celery and the leafy greens, but broccoli seems to…
Mapping the Garden
This week the 5th Grade at Hamlin Charter finished their maps of their garden beds. This not only teaches them mapping skills but they also have to identify what vegetables are already growing in their bed. Then both 5th Grade and the PALS classes used seed starting pellets to plant a variety of seeds, including…
At Lassen Elementary the 2nd Grade learned three ways to plant a garden—1) Planting seeds directly in the ground, 2) Buying seedlings at the store, and 3) Planting seeds in seed pellets and then transplanting the seedlings we grew ourselves into our garden beds. We planted cantaloupe and hot pepper seeds in individual seed pellets.…
Kindergarten students need plenty of time for garden exploration. With simple instructions to touch different areas of garden soil gently, they began to make observations. Look at these kiddos! There must be something super interesting under the picnic benches! The students discovered the soil is different in the pathways. “It’s really hard” they said. We…
What better way to learn about the parts of a plant and their function, then to actually handle a living baby plant! Aspire students did just that! Later we had a taste of their favorite garden food, kale with a splash of Tajín!
Cheers to a wonderfully wet winter! Last week in the Frank Del Olmo garden we celebrated the end of a fantastic six week session. Flowers are blooming all around, and the root veggies are splendid and plump. I hosted a spring time tea party for my students, as a w ay to show our appreciation for…
WE ARE TRYING A LARGER SCALE PLANTING AT THIS SITE Tomas And over to David! And off we go at Mid City Prescott Middle School! After a few days of planning, designing and creating the new gardening rows, we have now planted what will be our first crops of the season. The school has…
Worms are fascinating creatures. The kids love to explore a functioning worm ecosystem because not only do they find evidence of worms reproducing, they discover there are other creatures that share and benefit from the same environment. The kids love the book “Wiggling Worms at Work”. It explains so much about the worms life cycle.…
The end of the session is a great opportunity to learn how to harvest, prepare and enjoy great fruits and vegetables straight from the garden. Various kales, radishes and chives were harvest then cut into tiny pieces. We made an orange dressing that everyone loved and the students wrote down the recipe to share with…
This beautiful garden is pack full of citrus trees that are producing wonderfully. So why not teach the kids about the world of citrus! First we discussed shape, color and texture. Then the students drew the different types of citrus fruit. Lastly, we tasted the different varieties. Some were sweet and others very sour…those tart…
The first day of a new rotation are always so fun! This month it’s kindergarten’s turn in the garden and this group is full of questions! They explored the garden pointing and asking great questions along the way. “Are the orange ladybugs poisonous?” “Is that a tomato?” ”Why are the roly-poly’s eating the strawberry!?” ”What…
Thinking ahead is important when taking care of a garden if you want to have a continuous harvest. Today we harvested lots of beautiful lettuce then scattered some lettuce seeds to ensure we would have an ongoing supply The students were amazed that one seed holds all that is necessary to grow into a head…
Today’s lesson allowed students to become mapmakers! I asked to students to first create a mental map of their garden. Building maps encourages spatial thinking and allows one to comprehend space and place. In the case of our garden, our map extended into what we were growing and what goes on within soil. We discussed…
To their teachers delight, I brought in a bunch of red worms. Before allowing students to observe and handle the worms we reviewed the importance of worms in soil, their delicate anatomy, and the do’s and don’ts. To my surprise students were extremely interested in this lesson, and to have worms up close and personal.…
These kiddos were more than happy to get onto the floor and use their art skills to draw out the anatomy of a bee. Taking the bee piece by piece, we complicated the notion that bees were a belly with wings and a stinger. Instead kids got to thinking about their own bodies compare to…
The goal with this class was for students to build a hands-on model of our soil profile to discuss soil quality. After organizing ourselves into partners, we explored various locations where plants, trees, and weeds were growing. Not just within our garden beds but the area surrounding the garden area. Each teams decided upon five…
It really does start with a seed! All plants want to reproduce and the Woodlawn kindergarteners learned just that by going on a seed hunt! The students found evidence of how the big Jacaranda tree is dropping it’s seeds and trying to reproduce. Later we planted our own seeds. A few weeks later, we were…
Look what we found in the garden! All the students recognize lady bugs. However, baby lady bugs don’t look anything like the adults. The kids wondered at first if it was a caterpillar. A lot of people mistake these baby ladybugs as pests. The kids were shocked to learn it’s a baby ladybug and they…
The kindergartners learned all about the anatomy of a bee. We talked about the head, thorax, and abdomen (fancy word for stomach). We learned a bee has 5 eyes, 2 compound eyes and 3 simple eyes. And they have 6 legs and 2 anntenae. I wanted to teach the kids how the bees collect and…
The Renovated Library At Franklin Elementary THANKS To Tanya Ward Goodman . Her vision and leadership and persistence brought us to this day…There is nothing that this city can’t do.
On April 10th 2015, enrichla created the Hub at Marshall school Comfortable seating, conference tables, computers with large screens. A place for students and staff alike to gather to collaborate.
Hummingbirds feasting @ oregano flower
2nd rotation of the year started at Angeles Mesa Elementary. K, 1st and 3rd graders have been interacting with the garden and enjoying Unit 1. 3rd graders are so intrigued and curious about bugs, they liked the Friends & Foes lesson a lot! We recently harvested arugula, more radishes, chard; and have planted sweet snow…
Cilantro, Sage, Rosemary & Lavender at TAS
At this point in the late winter, we had more herbs and flowers than anything else. So it was a good time for a lesson about aromatherapy and other uses for these kinds of plants. The kids had to find three herbs or “smelly” plants by gently rubbing the leaves and finding plants with stronger…
On February 14th, I worked at Utah St. Elementary. Due to the stormy weather, and kindergartener’s penchant for getting mud on their clothes, I decided to hold class indoors. As I walked in to their class, they all beamed as I told them I thought their class was beautiful. Many of the students insisted on…
Students understood how important earthworms are for agriculture. Without their work underneath us, food and life will be different and perhaps not exist. These wriggly, gooey and loath creatures tilt the soil as they make their way through burrows. Water and air get to the roots of the plants much easier through these burrows. Earthworms…
The garden is lush and full of beets, radishes, and leafy greens. Students are busy adding amendments, seeds, and harvesting yummy herbs, lettuces, onions, beets, radishes, and leafy greens.
Students understood how important earthworms are for agriculture. Without their work underneath us, food and life will be different and perhaps not exist. These wriggly, gooey and loath creatures tilt the soil as they make their way through burrows. Water and air get to the roots of the plants much easier through these burrows. Earthworms…
Today we started a new garden session with 2nd and 1st Grade at Lassen Elementary School. It was a gorgeous day in the garden, and we were being pelted by flowers from our giant ash tree shading the picnic tables. We found out how to rub 2 fingers gently on the leaves of the plant…
Our first week tends to be an introductory week, and although I like it because the prep work can be minimal, I decided to do a quick introduction and move right into soil – and get down to business. The kids really exceeding my expectations of what to expect of 3rd graders and the teachers…
February was a rainy month, but between the welcome downpours and cloudy days we used the sunny interludes to build and maintain several composting piles and techniques, as part of 5th grades 8 week project based learning. Closing the cycle of food waste, and turning presumed trash to black gold, compost feeds soil, improves its…
Sixth graders have been working on putting their imprint on the future ‘Nature Garden’ site. As part of an 8 week project based learning the class was divided into four groups of 6. Each group began with first simply walking the sight and familiarizing themselves with how it sits and relates to all other buildings…
Welcome Tulsa gardeners!! I had the honor of teaching Tulsa Elementary’s FIRST garden classes to some wonderful 5th graders! Over winter break, I had come to the garden to plant some seedlings so that our new gardeners had some plants to explore when they got back. This included kale, broccoli, spinach, chard, and carrot seedlings.…
Students understood how important earthworms are for agriculture. Without their work underneath us, food and life will be different and perhaps not exist. These wriggly, gooey and loath creatures tilt the soil as they make their way through burrows. Water and air get to the roots of the plants much easier through these burrows. Earthworms…
This week at Multnomah Elementary the 4th graders went on a scavenger hunt in the garden looking for native plants! Each native plant in the garden was given an information sheet and a reason as to why we plant it in the garden. Do they attract butterflies? Are they water wise? Students were given three…
West Vernon Celebrates a Winter Harvest!
This week at West Vernon Elementary, we wrapped up our winter rotation. The students harvested what was ready from the garden which included broccoli, collard greens, cauliflower, purple beans, snap peas, chard, carrots and kale! We made some vegetarian tacos, using collard greens as the “tortilla” and each student was able to help make and…
Students understood how important earthworms are for agriculture. Without their work underneath us, food and life will be different and perhaps not exist. These wriggly, gooey and loath creatures tilt the soil as they make their way through borrows. Water and air get to the roots of the plants much easier through these borrows. Earthworms…
The students LOVE planting seeds and eating from our garden! For the “Parts of a Plant” lesson, we ate sunflower seeds, carrots for the root, celery for the stem, mint for the leaves, broccoli for the flower, and grapes for the fruit. It is fun to see the students trying new foods and discovering that…
This is one of my favorite lessons to teach! The kindergartners loving eating every part of a plant — peas for the seeds, radishes for the roots, celery for the stem, mint for the leaves, broccoli for the flower, and apples for the fruit. After the students gobble up their food, they color in each…
Rain is great, great, GREAT, but the strong down pours we’ve been having, can really compact the soil in the garden beds. Not a problem for Woodlawn students! We spent the class time learning how soil gets compacted, and why compacted soil is hard on plants. Later, we loosened up the soil using the proper…
The kids were so excited to get out to the garden after the rain! There were so many flowers blooming that we decided to pick some and really take a close look. After sorting them by color, we drew our favorites making sure we used the true colors of the flowers. We picked some…
It’s the 5th Grade’s turn in the garden at Hamlin Charter Academy. After a discussion of why we plant gardens (growing healthy food, saving money, enjoying beautiful flowers, exercising, soaking up sunshine and the peaceful setting), we explored the garden a bit to see what’s growing. I then assigned each student a garden bed to…
February is full of colors at Rio Vista Edible Garden. This is all thanks to the weather conditions that winter is bringing. It is also helping something very important to make a cozy place for the seeds to grow. Can you guess what?… Yes, Soil!. In this lesson we put our hands in the soil.…
In this lesson we discovered that some plants are dormant (sleeping) in Winter, but before, they were preparing themselves for the winter in Fall. Others like the Summer better. Some do better in Winter and others love the Spring. We enjoy the winter because we can harvest some lettuce, kale, carrots, and rain is covering…
We could not be more happy about this! Our garden is showing us how happy it is! The mustard greens are blooming, carrots are ready for harvest, radishes taste fresh, snap peas everywhere, tatsoi and more!!! We learned today how important it is to respect the cycle of life of each species, to be patient…
Winter is here, and our garden is enjoying the cold weather. Our class this month discovered why soil is so important in order to grow our seeds. We dug up and discovered a world of minerals and organic matter hiding in the samples we took from our garden. Every single component in our soil plays…
January has been surprising. We have a new year to start with our hands in the soil. And yes, that is what we did. Kindergarten classes have been exploring different types of soil. They found out that soil is made of: Air, water, organic matter (leaves, vegetables scraps, bark, etc.), minerals (sand, silt and clay).…
Our 5th grade students made it clear that Rio Vista Edible Garden was missing some important information about the garden’s history. We are proud of the garden, so they interviewed the school staff and researched online to create these amazing nature boards filled with information. Our nature boards include vital information such as a…
Great to have our feathery friends at Kingsley thanks to our awesome plant manager. The children love visiting the roosters when out in the garden. They keep us all company and they’re not too noisy!
May not be right,but we are enjoying watching the corn grow at Marshall. When those seeds were planted, the odds were not great, but it offers us a chance to talk about how growing is an unpredictable undertaking depending on so many variables and not always following the ‘rules’. Being somewhat new to the garden,…
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Poster Contest at Mid-City
In February, the 3rd grade class at Mid-City expressed their “3 R” desires with a poster contest! In groups, the created posters on how they desire to reduce, reuse and recycle and here are some examples of their awesome work! PS – We also discovered some amazing friends in our garden this month and took…
Flower Art + Radish Hearts at 6th Avenue
In February we learned lots of awesome things with our 1st grade class at 6th Avenue 🙂 One of our last lessons of the month was “How a Flower Grows” and the students had a amazing time delicately taking apart a flower and putting it back together on a piece of paper to make flower…
So exciting to explore our winter bounty at Kingsley! While Brussels Sprouts may not be the kids’ favorite veg, seeing it grow definitely makes them curious! We’ll give them more time to grow and then sample….
Botanically speaking, a fruit is a seed-bearing structure that develops from the ovary of a flowering plant, whereas vegetables are all other plant parts, such as roots, leaves and stems. … This includes such botanical fruits as eggplants, bell peppers and tomatoes.
The sunflowers sadly do not have enough space to truly share their cheer at Marshall. To protect from our squirrel friends, our beds are all fenced in and not quite tall enough for one of my favorite flowers. But they are persisting!
I just had to post a story about how much our garden has progressed since it was built last fall. This is a photo of the same garden bed pictured in our feature photo when we started the Garden Ranger program at Hamlin Charter Elementary last September. We had some drainage issues and a definite…
This was our last week with 4th grade at Lassen Elementary, so we prepared a meal from our garden along with some tomatoes and limes from the grocery store. The students learned about knife safety and then went to work with their plastic lettuce knives and cutting boards to dice tomatoes, onions, radishes, slice…
Learning about the importance of our monarch butterfly population was a great lesson during our rainy day indoor classes. The kids had seen monarchs visiting the garden, but didn’t realize they had laid there eggs. I brought in some of the catapillars for a close-up observation. We learned about their migration, their diet and some…