Summer 2024

Master Gardeners and School Gardens

by David George and Pam Austin

Did you know that the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County has an active support program for school gardens in the county? Does your public or private school have an existing vegetable or flower garden that needs sprucing up? Is a new garden currently being planned? Or do you, as parents or school staff, have occasional gardening questions? UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County are available to help!

There are a variety of school gardens among the 24 that UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County currently support. Volunteerism, funding, and goals differ from school to school. Many schools enjoy fabulous vegetable and flower gardens, but not all. It’s tough for some schools, especially in underserved communities, to find enough resources to fully develop a teaching and learning garden for their students.

Master Gardener volunteers offer free advice and interact via email or on-site with volunteer parents, teachers, and occasional administrators. Support involves answering gardening, plant, irrigation, pest, or design questions as well as arranging for skilled specialists from our program to help with in-depth advice. Master Gardener volunteers also offer to research specific topics, point school teams to UC ANR websites, or direct them to our Help Desk.

The UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa County offers county schools more than just advice. Each year, we distribute free surplus vegetable seedlings to school gardens in the spring. Other giveaways can include soil testing kits, magnifying loupes, and tool buckets based on need. Bags of garden soil, gloves, watering cans, cover crop seeds, shovels, and other essential tools have also been distributed in the past. In particular, disadvantaged neighborhood schools benefit from these contributions towards their school garden program.

UC Master Gardener Pam Austin is co-lead for the Contra Costa School Gardens project. “We share research-based gardening advice and possible alternatives to accomplishing their goals. I love to get outdoors and meet with parents, teachers, and the occasional kids that waft through. They are so enthusiastic about their gardens and love to show me around. One of my favorite projects is the Los Medanos Community College Child Study Center Garden in Pittsburg, built by parents and volunteers for the faculty, staff, and student-parent daycare kids.”

Laura Gunderson, a parent and school garden specialist at Burton Valley School in Lafayette, says, “Students (pretend like they) are engineers and scientists, excavating rocks looking for fossils, developing waterways to manage runoff, building nature games, and creating peaceful places to quietly observe nature. Being responsible for so many living things is a huge and overwhelming undertaking. I'm grateful to the UC Master Gardener Program for providing expertise and much-needed support.”

Claire Boudreaux, School Garden Coordinator at Fairmont Elementary School in El Cerrito offers, “Want kids to eat more vegetables? Plant a garden! Kids will try anything. And because I let them spit out anything they didn’t like (in the compost), they came back to try again and again. That's the key to long-term dietary change, which delivers long-lasting health benefits.”

Pam adds, “There’s satisfaction in seeing a school take an empty lot and build a thriving garden that students actively love. The kids look forward to the next time they can go to the garden. The range of learning includes plants, insects, weather, soil, seeds, sun, and so much more.” Pam points out a great Green Schoolyards America blog about how building easy access to urban forests benefits kids’ physical and mental health: https://www.greenschoolyards.org/blog

Jessica Gorelik, Moraga School District Service Learning Liaison, says, “I was lucky enough to be introduced to the UC Master Gardener Program, [which has] been instrumental in our efforts to create and rehabilitate beautiful, usable, outdoor learning classrooms in our gardens. Their knowledge of plant life has been crucial in helping us tend to beneficial plants and select new additional plants to support our mission of creating native, drought-tolerant, pollinator-friendly garden spaces.”

For assistance with your school garden, please email our Help Desk at ccmg@ucanr.edu. Visit our website for more school gardens program information at: https://ccmg.ucanr.edu/SchoolGardens/