Click here for a link to a complete list of types of gardens, activities and short blurbs on lessons at Riverside. 

In the ideal world, gardens would be as common at school as swing sets and libraries. They'd be funded, and summer watering would be on the work order for the custodians, just like buffing the floors. The shrinking landscape of education budgets lands us short of the ideal world. And the reality for most schools is that if somebody wants a garden, they're going to have to figure out for themselves how to fund and operate it. They're also going to have to figure out how to justify it and sell the idea to the decision makers.

In the thought that one New Jersey school's success might provide ideas and inspiration for new school gardeners, NJF2SN put the question to Dorothy Mullen, "How did you make this happen?" Dorothy has run the gardening program at Riverside Elementary School in Princeton as a volunteer for nine years. In year 10, she will be "garden artist in residence", a program largely funded through PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) efforts and supported by local foundations and businesses.

“The Riverside Gardens are somewhat unusual as public school gardens go” said Dorothy; “The vision included providing models and instruction for aspiring school gardeners beyond the district.” The gardens cover a 40-foot wide sunny slope that runs longer than the soccer field. The beds include vegetable, tea and herb gardens; cutting flower, native flower and butterfly gardens; a bug observation area; a raspberry patch; and four compost piles. They also include a series of raised beds belonging to a community “lawn to food” program, which invites aspiring vegetable gardeners on to the campus off school hours for instruction in the basics of growing crop plants.

As the climate changes, parents have become more and more interested in garden-based education for their children. So over the years, the PTO has assumed more and more responsibility for funding the program and providing volunteers. Most recently, Riverside set up a new layer of room parents, “garden room parents”, who show up every time their child’s class has lessons outside.

But there has always been concern about how to make the garden more businesslike, more legitimate and less vulnerable to the forces that create weed patches when volunteers move on. Principal Bill Cirullo also wanted to make the garden experience happen for every child in the school. How? Make it a residency. And this was doable as long as the PTO would help with the funding.

Making the garden program a residency accomplished two important points. It elevated school gardening such that every class would be scheduled for enough time to give the students a meaningful experience, and it opened the door to combining lessons matched to state standards with spontaneous learning and actual gardening.

In a desire to be sensitive to a possible drain on classroom time, the program will include “specials” teachers--health, music, and art as well as the science coordinator’s classroom time. Starting this spring, all children including the autism classes will have three to six sessions in the outdoor classrooms, more for Ks, first and second graders.

Dorothy’s personal reasons for being there started with concerns about health. In her other life, she works with diabetic adults and others who are depressed, overweight and otherwise unwell because of what she calls “an addictive relationship with the processed food supply.” A long-time gardener, and now a Rutgers Master Gardener, she is also urgent about our cultural failure to raise children who are environmental stewards. The Healthy Children, Healthy Planet residency will address an array of issues linking personal health and the environment, hopefully with enough time and consistent exposure over six years of elementary school experience to make a lasting difference in eating habits and environmentally sound behaviors.

Riverside is entering its tenth year of school gardening. Growth has been incremental. Dorothy points out that many of the steps have been inexpensive and manageable and just require a small garden and a few dedicated volunteers. These ideas include:

* after school or recess garden clubs

* learn by doing opportunities (veiled work days) to teach parents and children together

* rainy day cooking projects in the brick and mortar classrooms

* Pesto Day, Stone Soup Day, and harvesting and drying herbs for colonial fair