KITCHEN GARDENS

Never tried them in light shade. Or, what do you mean by light shade, do they have any hours of full sun?

I miss my super raised beds in Humboldt, but what the hell.

they have maybe 4 hours full sun at early summer.

If you get at least 4-5 hours of sun you can try:
Salad Greens- such as leaf lettuce, arugula, endive, cress, and radicchio; also broccoli, cauliflower, peas, beets, brussels sprouts, radishes, swiss chard,
leafy greens- such as collards, mustard greens, spinach, and kale,
plus most beans.

Sage will not be happy with shade. It wants full hot sun - picture where you see it growing naturally.

You can grow currants and gooseberry shrubs in pots in part shade.

Is there a place a your school you could do a potted garden? It seems to be all the rage at the moment, but someone has to start it.

You can use your soil and reduce the suspected toxin load by getting some charcoal crumbs and using this as a medium to detox the soil. ALso, the more compost you add the more any toxins are kept in traction. Sveral plants (like golden rod) actually can remove metal toxins from soils by uptaking the metals into the plant tissue. The plants are then harvested and disposed of in a regulated fashion (Id put it into a landfill that is created to take municipal wastes)

leafy vegetables or radishes can be grown in light shade.

No GW, tomatillos are a pre tomato and a ground cherry is a special kind of tomato varietal that has been developed for sweetness . It does have a husk which is probably an indicator that theres some tomatillo in there but the taste is waaay different. Its almost like a Service berry

Do you know the latin? I'm not at all sure what plant you mean. Serviceberry (Amelanchier) I think of as similar to huckleberry in flavor and seedy crunch.

Green witch, I have thought about gardening with the kids at school. I will when I have a more permenant position. The middle school I'm now at has a large track-and-field space. It is near the parking lot, but not too near it - there's probably 30 feet between of unused land. Well, normally it is unused, right now it is used as an access road for construction. I don't know what kind of outside access to water the building has (spigot).

I guess I should bring it up, because it probably would take a year of committees to bring it to fruition.

Physallis is the genus of several solenaceous plants that contain the tomatillo and tomatoes. The fruit has also been called the Cape Gooseberry. Its a long season plant . There are about 15 species , each with a unique feature. The ground cherry has a sweet/tart flavor (LIKE serviceberries) and , when not quite ripe, they have a nice acidity. They become available for zone 6 and higher .Itd be touch and go for any lower zones because they dont tolerate frost at all. They also have a heavy water demand during growth. Thompson and Morgan sell them (as does Rohrer seeds in Pa).

Youre gonna need to consider a fence so that the little dears dont trample the gardens. WE once built a really neat marshland nature study area for kids . Our watershed group acquired a 300000$ grant to build a wetland resource area with benches and a pavilon for nature observation. WE built long woodchip lined paths, several stations, a platform, a pavilion, severalnesting boxes, and a wetland garden. WE turned it over to the school and within 1 month, the whole thing was destroyed the school didnt seem to give a ****(they originally wanted us to merely turn the grant over to them). Several contractors volunteered to rebuild the area and then the police put it on their nightime patrol. A few weeks later, the cops caught a group of kids who were trying to hack up the pavilion and were attempting to destroy wood duck boxes and several bird houses that the Boy scouts built and erected.

The school really never developed an ownership mentality even though several science teachers helped design and build the thing. Today its a field that is deep into forest succession. SO whenever I attend some school district function where they ask for financial help, I try not to get too angry.

In MAss, youd have to have a small garden that delivers crops beforw the end of school terms. Its be a natural if the school terms were year round. Any activity thats truncated by the end of the school year is a problem.

Peas, greens, radishes, and demonstration grasses(no not that) to show how roots add to the soil. Maybe a soil fertility demonstration with rye grasses which you harvest at different times to show how the soil benefits from plantings of "green manures"

AND youre gonna need a fence!!. Id suggest an electric one, that way the really destructive kids would just get fried.

I floated this idea with a very small group at school today. One teacher thought is was a great idea, one shrugged. And one student, who vegetable-gardens, said he wasn't interested in being part of it. I wouldn't expect it to stop at the end of school, though we'd plant spinach or something so we'd have at least one crop to show by school's end. It would need to be maintained over the summer. Maybe it could be a summer program and those invovled could take the vegies home. Produce ripening in September would go back to the school kitchen.

The town has more attractive areas for deer to graze and I don't think the kids are quite that much of a threat (maybe it's more a hope than a thought).

greens, radishes, some longer crops if youre gonna have all year help. (The thing with schools is that you get a fresh crop of inmates each new year). Maybe the grounds guys and physcal plant folks will enjoy a garden in which they can get some bounty. The Magnet school overnear Downingtown Pa has a school garden and they make it part of the biology program (they use peas , corn types for genetics crossing, and they do seedkeeping . Kids use the garden for science fair projects ) One kid did a lycopine surrogate from different types of tomatoes and won a regional chemistry award.

They have a "garden team" that starts in 9th grade and continues till graduation. Its an FFA chapter. (market gardening). These kids are some of the best anbd brightest in numbers of areas.

Anybody that messes with the garden is dealt with by the team. (I know nothing!)

The kids might be able to loop up with it. Maybe a 6-7 grade or a 7-8 grade project.

there's mulch to be dung gardening

Both our local High Schools have veggie gardens. When they first started them there was a big fuss about the kids being allowed to eat the vegetables because of health regulations - go figure. Here's a link with some general information:

http://greenleafgardens.org/_wsn/page3.html

There must be more, but in Melbourne (where I live) I know of a few examples of school kitchen gardens, mostly in primary schools. The produce from the (student tended) gardens is generally used in cooking programs designed to teach students new, healthier ways with food. So it's grow, cook, then eat!

They have introduced a new seed starting media . Its a plastic pan with a sponge like material that is apparently made of some kind of fibrous material that swells to about 5 times its dry thisckness. You lay the seeds on top of th media (its in a plastic tray) and then cover the seeds with a teeny bit of sphagnum. The seeds will sprout and the medium kind of disaggregates over the 4 weeks or so that the eeds are growing into transplantable sprouts. The material provides a nice footing and the individual sprouts cn be cut out and planted right in the garden. I dont know how long I could delay plantingwithout having a fibrous tangle of root mats that are difficult to separate.

my red beets are sprouting. OH kaloo kalay, frabjus day!!

Some day I'll have seed starting windows and grow lights....

I floated the garden idea to the principal, he was NOT enthusiastic. He said someone had already suggested it.