The Colorado Master Gardener Program: Planting Gardens, Growing People

CMG Outreach in Morgan County
Green Acres Elementary School Garden

At the end of the school year, Becky Greenwood, 3rd grade teacher at Green Acres Elementary School in Fort Morgan Colorado, had the idea to have a summer garden that her students would plant and harvest.  She recruited help from Judy Wickham,
Colorado Master Gardener volunteer, to help plan the garden and teach the kids about growing a garden.  Judy was delighted to assist.

Mrs. Greenwood and her students, planted seeds to go into the garden, and started them in the classroom.  They had a wide and beautiful selection of seedlings growing.

It was the 1st week in June when they met and surveyed our garden plot.  It was on the south side of the school in an open area that would get sun all day.  It had water faucets handy and the grounds crew repaired all broken sprinkler heads so our garden would be watered when they watered the lawn.  

The space was about 30’x 30’ and covered with weeds.  The soil was decent but it needing some organic matter incorporated.  The school grounds manager tilled the area, garden helpers worked in composted cattle manure.

The plants included the regular garden items: cucumbers, snap peas, scallions, carrots (some blood carrots) lettuces, tomato plants, bell peppers, sunflowers, watermelon, cantaloupe, cabbage, pie pumpkins, zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, Patti pan squash, chocolate mint, thyme, cilantro, and corn.

Mrs. Greenwood’s students and anyone else that wanted were invited to come and help take part in this fun project.  They had some other teachers, parents, and extra children that lived in the area, and my two grand kids, who got very excited about helping in the garden.  We averaged 8 to 10 helpers on our regular mornings.  As it got closer to harvest we had as many as 20.  We met every Tuesday for an hour, but anyone could visit the garden anytime.  Mrs. Greenwood only lived two blocks away so she was there a lot to do extra watering.

There are buildings around the plot so it was somewhat hard to see and if you did not know it was there you would never suspect this was going on.  We were very worried about vandalism.  We knew other schools had tried this and they had run into problems.  We lucked out, and having kids right in that neighborhood helped keep an eye on the garden.

After the garden was planted, the kid’s lay 3 to 4 layers of newspaper in between the rows to help keep the weeds down.  The grounds keepers were happy to keep us in grass clippings, which we used as mulch.  The kids were all good about hoeing weeds and helping anyway they could.

They had a variety of lettuces, so each week each child could take some lettuce home and share with their families and taste different greens.  The zucchini and pattipan squash were very exciting to watch.  As the season progressed there was more and more to harvest.  The kids were so excited.

Mrs. Greenwood submitted some our veggies at the county fair and brought home several ribbons including a blue ribbon for our lettuces.

They developed a system where we all helped pick the vegetables and placed them on a blanket and the children would take turns and pick what they wanted to take home.  This approach worked very well to keep it fair.

School was back in session by the end of August.  Mrs. Greenwood’s new 3rd grade class continued to learn about gardening and they harvested the produce, tasted, and shared.
She baked the pumpkins and made pie.  With a huge cabbage plant, she made cabbage pockets for her students and they were a big hit.

For next season’s garden, Green Acres School has provided some funding for a drip system, wood for raised beds, and grow lights for starting seedlings.

The positive response has been so overwhelming that Mrs. Greenwood thinks she might have to have two gardening classes to accommodate all of the students that want to get involved.

Contact Us

CSU Extension, Morgan County Office
914 East Railroad Avenue
PO Box 517
Fort Morgan, CO 80701-0517
Phone: (970) 542-3540
Fax: (970) 542-3541
Email: coopext_morgan@mail.colostate.edu

CMG Staff

• Joanne Jones, Horticulture Agent at (970) 542-3542