Miles Brashear, LSU AgCenter agent in Pointe Coupee Parish, talks about the book “How to Grow a School Garden” co-authored by Arden Bucklin-Sporer. She spoke recently (Feb. 3) in New Roads to LSU AgCenter 4-H representatives, teachers, Master Gardeners and parents on the benefits of school gardens and how to keep them sustainable. Bucklin-Sporer also is the director of educational gardens for the San Francisco Unified School District. (Photo by Bruce Schultz. Click on photo for downloadable image.)

News Release Distributed 02/08/12

NEW ROADS, La. – More than 70 LSU AgCenter county agents, Master Gardeners, parents and teachers heard a California gardener tell about the benefits of school gardens and how to get them started and sustaining them.

The speaker, Arden Bucklin-Sporer, director of the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance, co-wrote the book “How to Grow a School Garden.”

School gardens succeed and continue when they are made part of students’ curriculum, Bucklin-Sporer said. “Everything we do in the garden should have something related to curriculum.”

Children can be encouraged to keep a journal of their gardening activities, she said. “It’s better than sitting in a classroom trying to figure out what to write.”

School gardens promote healthy lifestyles, she said. “Anything a kid will grow, a kid will eat.”

Vegetables from a school garden cannot be used in school lunches because the produce doesn’t comply with federal food regulations, she said. Nevertheless, school gardens also promote a sense of environmental stewardship.

Bucklin-Sporer said getting a school garden established is not difficult, but continuing one is the challenge.

She advised learning from other schools that have a garden and involve 4-H students and Master Gardeners.

Teachers and parents are needed as partners, and funds can be obtained from foundations and large corporations, she said. “My hope is that you will have a Louisiana garden network.”

Five schools in Pointe Coupee Parish have gardens, and two more will be added by next school year, said Miles Brashier, LSU AgCenter agent in Pointe Coupee Parish.

Bucklin-Sporer’s organization has helped establish 140 school gardens in the San Francisco area, Brashier said. “She has more in San Francisco than we have in Louisiana.”

Brashier said he learned about Bucklin-Sporer and her book through a friend in New Roads, and she was invited to speak when she came to Louisiana to visit family. “We just got lucky and knew somebody who knew somebody.”

Organic practices are best, Bucklin-Sporer said, but she admitted concessions may have to be made in Louisiana where the insect problems are far worse than in California.

Pesticides can be sprayed during long weekends and holidays when students won’t be present, Brashier said.

He said he also gets satisfaction from a school garden. “It’s so fun to watch them come alive when they eat stuff that they grew,” he said of the students.

New Orleans has a large school garden program.

“A school garden is one of the best things we can do, especially in Louisiana because we are an agricultural state,” Brashier said. “It’s a neat thing to see how much possession students take of their garden.”

The AgCenter will develop a model school garden at the Burden Center in Baton Rouge to demonstrate different gardening systems for schools, said Kiki Fontenot, LSU AgCenter state coordinator for school gardens. She said she sends out a monthly newsletter “Veggie Bytes” on school gardening.

Brandi Spears, a teacher at Charlie Thomas Head Start in Baton Rouge, said she saw several positive aspects of a school garden. “I like the benefits of it. It will give them a sense of accomplishment.”

Spears said she works with children from families that are below the poverty level, and a school garden would be a way to put quality food on their shelves at home.