In the mid-1990s, a group of Berkeley, Calif. teachers and community members decided to create a school garden—not just a patch of lettuce and carrots for extracurricular picking, but a well-thought-out school within a garden. They were eventually given space in an abandoned lot behind the Martin Luther King, Jr. middle school, on the north side of town.
"It was a trashy, blown-out, deserted area, with hard-as-sin asphalt and a few tufts of grass pushing up," says Wendy Johnson, who has been mentor and adviser at the Edible Schoolyard since its inception. "The dream was: 'Let's see if we can open this ground with the students and grow some food.'"
Fifteen years later, the thriving, one-acre garden, seasonally filled with appetizing bounty like juicy sungold tomatoes, sweet cane raspberries and glossy Swiss chard, proves that if there's commitment and passion, even children can learn to be successful gardeners. Johnson, who also wrote part-memoir, part-instruction-manual Gardening at the Dragon's Gate, offers us advice on how to do the same, beginning with this: "We didn't let anything discourage us, even that hard, terrible ground."
Tools you'll need:
- a spade
- a hoe
- a pair of pruners
- work gloves
- a trowel
And for larger spaces:
- a rake
- a shovel
1. Cultivate the ground
Whether you have acres of land, a modest deck or a mere windowsill, you can grow your own food. But before you start digging, take time to understand your space. What climate zone do you live in? Do you get a lot of rain? What kind of sun does it get? Is it windy? Will nearby trees or structures cast shadows across the plot? If you envision filling up your entire yard with rows of vegetables, ask yourself if you're up to the physical challenge, or if you'll have dedicated helpers to shovel, water, weed and harvest.
In fact, says Johnson, when starting your first garden, go smaller than what you anticipate you can handle. You can always spread out next year, when you have more experience. If you have a choice between a few windows, a front or back porch, or different areas in your yard, you'll typically want to pick the spot with the full-sun southern exposure (or whichever gets the most light).
Outdoor plot
If you're working with an outdoor plot, investigate the history of the soil, especially if you live in an urban area. You can pay a soil laboratory a small amount to find out if it contains toxins, like lead or arsenic. Ensure that your pathways are wide enough to allow you to easily work on all parts of the ground, are accessible to tools and water source, and can accommodate equipment like wheelbarrows.
Once you've determined the safety of your garden foundation and designed an efficient path system, start digging your beds, at least a foot deep, to loosen up the dirt and remove weeds. For a neater, more efficient design, build frames around your beds (that are only as big as you can comfortably reach into the center from the sides.) Purchase prefabricated frames from the store, or for less money, simply construct one using raw, untreated wood. You can also just as easily line the bed perimeters with sturdy objects, like brick, stones or discarded logs.
Build up
If for any reason you don't want to dig down and grow from flat soil, form a raised bed by digging outside your bed's perimeters,thus lowering the paths around your planned bed and mound the soil eight to 12 inches deep. Putting down a thick layer of newspaper or cardboard, and cover it with mulch, followed by about a foot of soil/compost.
Contain your garden
If neither of those options work for you, try a container garden, positioning it as close to the kitchen as possible for easy harvesting. You want containers that are about a foot deep to allow roots to spread and then drain well—otherwise the roots of your plants can rot. Before filling them with your planting mix and seeds, crumble in a little bit of old leaves first. Johnson prefers a vessel made out of wood, which helps plants to breathe, but if all you have is a tomato can or a yogurt tub, just puncture the bottom with a few holes, and follow the same basic principles.
2. Fertilize
In order to grow healthy plants, you need more than just plain soil—you need fertile, microbe-hosting, nutrient-having soil. In the early years at the Berkeley Edible Schoolyard, the staff trucked in municipal compost until they were able to make their own organic compost on-site. Johnson recommends trying to generate as much fertility as possible from what you're growing. Learn how to compost. However, any good nursery should sell organic potting soil mix that hasn't been injected with chemical fertilizers.
3. Decide what you like and propagate
"First, fall in love with a crop and want to grow them," says Johnson. "The excitement of growing what you love is unmatched." The teachers thought about what the kids ate, and knew the students wouldn't be as interested in rutabagas as they would be in candy-like berries. Then they plotted to lure them into the garden by planting thick raspberry beds. "When you have that pleasurable experience it goes a long way," says Johnson. "You begin to want to be a good chef."
Decide where your seedlings or starter plants are going to come from. Are you going to purchase them from a nursery or ask your neighbor for some? "It's important to at least have part of your garden started from seed," says Johnson, "but you don't have to because not everyone has that option or time to make sure they don't dry out or get too wet." However, she adds, "that makes you a more alive, alert gardener."
4. Tend
There's no real across-the-board advice for plants because each one is different. Your best bet is to follow directions on the seed packets, seek specific advice from experts at your nursery, or to do your own extra research.
