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.
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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.
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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.…
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…
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…
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!
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…
Mr. Diaz’s class has been so disciplined throughout our 6 weeks, from being respectful to insects, to planting seeds in their new Kinder garden bed. Today, as a reward for the patience, we harvested carrots! Check out these amazing pictures – starting from Mr. Diaz leading the charge to the kids harvesting. I am so…
Wheeew, what a week and it’s only Wednesday! We have been hard at work teaching lessons at Micheltorena, and during our down time, working on getting the kids to eat healthy, find homes for perfectly good food and compost what can’t be saved. I’ll start with harvesting, it was lesson 6 in our rotation. Meaning…
A wet slippery winter is here and students came to find a messy garden. The cold months of December, January and February are for gardeners to care and do maintenance in the garden. These long and cold months are great for making seedlings, prune herbs and fruit trees, amend and test soils, harvest cool veggies, herbs…
I looooove teaching the kindergarteners about the six parts of the plant so so much. I love it because the best part of the lesson (other than learning what an amazing job all those parts have) is getting to eat those parts as we go along! From flowers like purple broccoli to seeds like…
The middle school kids at St. Patrick’s have spent a LOT of time in the garden at this point. They’ve also learned a lot. But after coming back out for a second session this year, I asked them to connect with the plants that they planted a couple months earlier. They really went…
The garden at the Sullivan preschool has been flourishing especially after this great rain we had. The soil is moist and rich and perfect for digging! It’s not often enough that kids get to dig in beautiful, dark soil, where they might encounter creatures of the earth like worms, grubs, beetles etc. Getting a little…
What’s Cooking!? Well in the classroom of Mr. Perez’ Nutrition and education period, we are cooking with what the garden gives us! Shredded pollo spiced with peoppers and tomatoes and a salsa freshly made with onions tomatoes, lemon & limes and herbs from our garden! When I tell you that the smell is incredible, I…
The garden at Frank Del Olmo has seemed to reach its winter climax. The past month has been filled with opportunities to snack on beets, sugar snap peas, broccoli, radishes and celery. When I arrived for the first time in late September we did a total overhaul of the summer plantings and now we are…
A wet slippery winter is here and students came to find a messy garden. The cold months of December, January and February are for gardeners to care and do maintenance in the garden. These long and cold months are great for making seedlings, prune herbs and fruit trees, amend and test soils, harvest cool veggies, herbs…
It was a beautiful warm day to be in the garden. Our first classes for 4th and 5th Grades began with a review of the rules and a search of the garden for two different textures of leaves. We found curly kale, fuzzy sage, smooth Aloe Vera, colorful Swiss chard. We even have tomatoes in…
A wet slippery winter is here and students came to find a messy garden. The cold months of December, January and February are for gardeners to care and do maintenance in the garden. These long and cold months are great for making seedlings, prune herbs and fruit trees, amend and test soils, harvest cool veggies, herbs…
Returning to the garden after the winter break offered some beautiful surprises, like the purple cauliflower we doted on for months! It was ready to harvest, as well as some beautiful varieties of radishes and turnips. We also needed to harvest some of our winter greens–lettuces, chards, and kales. So we made a big salad…
A wet slippery winter is here and students came to find a messy garden. The cold months of December, January and February are for gardeners to care and do maintenance in the garden. These long and cold months are great for making seedlings, prune herbs and fruit trees, amend and test soils, harvest cool veggies, herbs…
Teaching about seed development is one of my favorite topics. It’s full of “Wow” moments. Like when I hand them a dry lima bean, and ask them to peel off the seed coat. Or when I show them a jar with 30 dry lima beans, then the equivalent amount that I have soaked overnight in…
If you know me, you know I love working the soil. When I first started gardening, I was so naive about what makes a successful garden. I thought, “oh it must be the seeds!” As time goes on, I realize so much of the wonder of a productive garden comes from the soil. And so…
We rolled out our first day of food collecting during lunch time at Micheltorena. Equipped with a bucket and a compost sign. I set it up at the lunch area. I had lunch with the kids and wanted to see what they were eating and what they were throwing away. The kids who have…
A rainy day soundtrack of thunder and lightning did not hinder Yorkdale Elementary Tk, 4th & 5th graders from learning all about the parts of a seed. We began our class seated in a circle upon the floor in a large muti purpose room with focused students entranced in an exercise we dubbed, Parts of…
This month, the 2nd graders met some of my super helpful worm friends. We learned about how different they are from any human we have come across. I mean, do you know of any human that has 5 hearts? Yes, I said FIVE hearts. We learned how helpful they are for our soil, and in…
Gardner Kinder students really delved into their artistic side as we discovered and learned about the different parts of plant. We put our writing and drawing skills to the test while putting our own personal touches to our creations. Watch out, Picasso! I see some new artists in town! The second graders delved deep into…
At Arroyo Seco, the rains brought in lots of growth! Our leafy greens grew many more beautiful green and two-toned leafs. Our cauliflower started to make their debut and even some rain-loving fungi (mushrooms) started growing – not to worry, they were promptly removed after observing how beautiful, creative, and interesting they were! I also…
In January, while our brave teachers and students were striking in the pouring rain, we calmly cheered them on from inside our cozy classrooms with garden aromatherapy. Sitting in a circle on a blanket, we identified stuff that cause us to feel stress in our lives. Children shared candid examples of their personal fear &…
It’s so nice to be back in the garden after the long break, only this time I have younger classes and boy has it been an adventure! It’s nice to go from week 1 of “ewwwww” when we see insects to genuine curiosity as to why insects live where they do. We couldn’t have chosen…
Our 3rd Graders this week took to their field journals to make observations about leaf shape, size, vein and stem structures. This work built off of previous lessons on garden mapping and co-planting. We discussed how these structural and design differences lend to better absorbing light, moving around nutrients, and fitting next different plants in the…
Mayberry 1st Graders got up-close with new smells, sights and textures this week. Along with their teacher, we discussed how to identify key differences between herbs and spices (think leaves/seeds vs bark/roots). Students tested their senses noting differences in smell and texture, and found not all were pleasant. We had fun telling stories about tacos…
Calvert’s kids this week learned about the ancient tradition of companion planting. The most well known system, The Three Sisters, was developed by Native Americans and to go over the pattern we drew diagrams with chalk on the asphalt. We talked about the importance of arranging crops so they complement one another based on their different requirements…
Thinning Carrots at The Accelerated School
The kids were excited to be back after rainy weather and work stoppages kept us out of the garden for awhile. But the garden didn’t take any time off and we had lettuces, broccoli, strawberries and radishes growing and growing. Also, loads of crazy carrot tops. So we thinned them out and had little carrot…
January started with a bang! Lots of much wanted and needed rain absorbed by the cover cropped beds and mulched pathways. Plus an extension of the winter break with a teacher strike that brought everyone back to the garden with so much renewed enthusiasm that it made my new approach to teaching so much easier…
We have a ton of snap peas growing in the garden. Every class got to pick off a few snap peas to try. They were very crunchy and sweet. A delicious snack! The 6th graders worked really well in small groups to create their nature boards to display in the garden. Topics that are covered…
We’ve been talking about different friends and foes we can find in the garden. It is always exciting when we actually see them when it’s time to explore! We found a cabbage worm (a foe) and a ladybug (a friend). We are enjoying lots of tasty snacks from our garden as well. Oranges from our…
Freshening Angeles Mesa Elementary
We have been super excited and entertained during our first Unit at Angeles Mesa. Kids from Pre-K, K and 5th grade have enjoyed learning and interacting with plants and garden. EnrichLA resumed activities at Angeles Mesa in the middle of November, bumping into a few days-off due to Thanksgiving, Winter Break, and then the strike,…
On a beautiful saturday morning after a week of rain, together with parents teachers students and alumni, we created the new garden. Special thanks to Gerry and Karina Salazar dedicated parents at the school.
It’s harvest time! Neither the LAUSD teacher strike nor intermittent rain could stop us from having a tasting of vegetables planted by kindergartners last fall. Thanks, Kinders! We talked about what part of the plants we were eating. Radishes (roots), green onions (roots), lettuce (leaves), Swiss chard (leaves), broccoli (flowers), and green peas (seeds) were…
Honeybees are buzzing at Hamlin Charter’s garden!
We learned about honeybees and why they are so important in our garden. About 1/3 of our vegetables depend on them for pollination! We learned about the differences between the queen bee, the worker bees, and the drone bees. Each one looks slightly different and has a different job in the hive. The bees that…
As our session came to a close in December, we checked our compost tumbler for the last time. We’d been adding and turning since school started, and it was getting almost too heavy to turn. Looked good, smelled good, felt good. So each student filled up a small plant container with some of the new…
This rainy day craft was so much fun and good enough to eat. And some tried! Using different shapes of pasta to describe the lifecycle of a butterfly was a hit with our little gardeners and chefs. Once they got past the sheer variety of noodles one can find at the grocery store, they got…
The winter solstice has come and gone once again. It’s still chilly, as winter should be, but the shadows are getting shorter and shorter all the time. The seeds that I first planted when I began caring for the garden 3 months ago are now ready to harvest! Celery, beets, radishes, broccoli and peas are…
September is a great time for tidying up a garden. Here in California, we are kind of in between seasons for planting, so you enjoy the last fruits of the summer and clean up the dead stuff. The middle schoolers at Van Nuys are great at this hands-on work. We pulled out dead green bean…
This week I needed to finish up learning the students’ names and we needed to learn about seeds. Because this lesson took place the literal day before LAUSD went on winter break there was a lot of excitement in the air. My first class of students came by dressed in their Christmas best. They were…
Change is constant in a garden, and at KIPP Comienza our final lesson of the year began with a new rotation. Our new groups were introduced to the garden space where they learned how it offers opportunities to use their senses as well as what makes up a food chain. Lessons were held in their…
First learning what is compost and the ingredients needed to make it We gather the materials on our list and mix them together in our piles and containers We also add some non-organic materials (plastic bags and tin foil) in order to determine if those items can also decompose As the weeks pass we will…
Today in the garden we went out to look for mini ecosystems. I explained to the students that an ecosystem consist of plants and animals (living organisms) interacting with the environment ( air, water, soil, weather). We talked about how an ecosystem can be influenced by many factors, living and non-living that can change the…
First learning what is compost and the ingredients needed to make it We gather the materials on our list and mix them together in our piles and containers We also add some non-organic materials (plastic bags and tin foil) in order to determine if those items can also decompose As the weeks pass we will…
The preschoolers at Sullivan have been learning about trees in the classroom. So to help support their learning, we did several hands on activities related to trees out in the garden. We observed various types of leaves growing from trees in our garden. Some are large, some small and some are green while others have…
First learning what is compost and the ingredients needed to make it We gather the materials on our list and mix them together in our piles and containers We also add some non-organic materials (plastic bags and tin foil) in order to determine if those items can also decompose As the weeks pass we will…
At EnrichLA, our mission is to bring edible school gardens to all Los Angeles schools. As part of that mission, we want to teach students how to become responsible and empowered stewards of the environment. One of the greatest lessons students can learn is the incredible process of composting: how grass clippings and food scraps…
First learning what is compost and the ingredients needed to make it We gather the materials on our list and mix them together in our piles and containers We also add some non-organic materials (plastic bags and tin foil) in order to determine if those items can also decompose As the weeks pass we will…
Learning about roots can be fun especially when kindergarten gets to see first hand a carrot, pulled from their own garden! We also saw beets, leeks and radishes growing in the garden. All were great examples of various types of roots! The carrots were the most exciting though and yummy too!
Because a few teachers requested it, I decided to teach the parts of a seed this week. I had emailed the teachers ahead of time asking them to have their students bring their journals to garden class. I then proceeded to draw the parts of a seed on my own whiteboard and asked that they…