School Garden Day-1 Results

The School and Community Garden Project is a program sponsored by the Ventura County Master Gardeners. Its purpose is to empower communities to create new gardens in schools, community settings and backyards.

Our first project was held at La Mariposa School in Camarillo, a school with a strong commitment to integrating gardening into the curriculum.

Here are some video and photos showing the work day at La Mariposa school in Camarillo. For more photos, please visit the school garden photos page.

We welcomed the parents and community at 9:00 A.M. Parents and teachers were treated to Master Gardener lectures on soils and soil preparation, seeding and irrigation.

Many came simply to work, including an entire cub scout pack, and at the end of the magnificent day, we created 11 beds, built to good standards of workmanship, in place and partially filled with earth from the pathways. One remains to be assembled and will go in place on Dirt Day after the space is cleared.

No one was hurt, and everyone left smiling.

The school principal is mulling over paving options but whatever material he chooses, it will be permeable. It just has to conform to school codes.

The boys and girls had a great time and did a large portion of the work, perhaps not as efficiently as possible, but in a very up close and personal, not to mention ‘hands-on’, manner.

They dug most of the holes needed for the irrigation corrections, removed the sprinkler heads, capped off or extended the risers, and later filled the holes back in.

They cut the crown away to lay the boxes neatly in place. They eagerly moved earth from the aisles into the boxes. What a great day for them.

The boys from the scout troop where doing better than some of their dads at end of their day, and they all had smiles on their faces.

The boys I talked too were proud to have done real work that had a real physical result. It didn’t hurt that they earned points toward a Summer activity badge for taking part in two civic activities.

As one writer put it, it was “an equal opportunity for students, parents, teachers, local gardeners and supporters to learn and get involved in a school garden project on this campus and to transplant this knowledge into their own backyards and to the future of their young children.”

Another parent said, “We are teaching our children the evolution from seed, to growth to harvest” .

Here’s an updated video showing the construction portion of the day. More photos have been added, thanks to Kamala Nahas…

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You can still sign-up to help us finish construction at this site on ‘Dirt Day’ – August 14th.

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