FRESH Ideas

Sep 20, 2022

Soil your Undies

Healthy soil contains billions of microscopic organisms. Just one teaspoon of healthy soil contains more microbes than there are people on the planet! Soil microbes are constantly feeding on organic matter, like cotton underwear.  The Soil Your Undies Challenge started in Oregon as a way to bring awareness to soil health. Simply bury a pair of cotton… 

Sep 20, 2022

Soils 101: Why soil, not dirt?

Why is it that people like me (Doug) get bothered when someone refers to soil as “dirt”? Are there grounds for this minor irritation? (Perhaps.) Is it fair to expect those new to the world of gardening and the great outdoors to differentiate between two apparently synonymous words? (Probably not.) Let’s dig in and take… 

Sep 20, 2022

Grow Your Soil

Last year our focus was on Social Emotional Learning; this year we will take a deep dive into soil. Each issue of our newsletter for the 2022-23 school year will include an article about some aspect of soil and supporting resources for you to explore. Climate change may seem like a daunting concept. Understanding carbon movement is… 

May 27, 2022

Growing School Gardens Summit

Amy and Doug were presenters at the Growing School Gardens Summit in Denver, Colorado, April 22-25. The conference gathered 400 folks together who are invested in school gardens. Those 400 participants represented 6,000 school gardens utilized by 2.5 million students. Among the attendees were three teachers Amy and Doug have worked with in the Cabarrus County School… 

May 27, 2022

Lessons from the Garden

I am often amazed at how many life lessons we can learn from observing the garden and how plants communicate their needs. Consider these three unexpected ways that students may relate to plants. 1. Let’s start with boundaries. I have struggled with setting boundaries in the past. I was worried about upsetting someone or letting others… 

May 27, 2022

Growing Sweet Potato Slips

Sweet potatoes are typically started by planting bare-root vegetative cuttings that have just begun to grow roots. Sweet potatoes are our favorite crop to plant at the end of the school year to provide a weed barrier in the beds through summer, while producing a crop that is ready to harvest when school starts back.… 

Mar 27, 2022

What’s New in Your Garden?

One of the great things many of us enjoy about spring is all of the newness we see around us. Bulbs begin bursting into flower, numerous shades of green from lawn grasses to tree leaves, birds belting out their choruses, and of course the warmer temperatures, are all things that make spring come alive. Newness is… 

Mar 27, 2022

Write, Rip, Grow

I recently came across this quote by Sigmund Freud, “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” Some of those uglier ways that unexpressed emotions come forth can be acting out, depression and even physical symptoms, like a tummy ache or a headache. However, expressing our emotions can… 

Feb 16, 2022

School Garden Clubs

There are two primary ways school gardens are utilized. Either a teacher incorporates the garden as an outdoor classroom to meet curriculum goals, or a teacher or community group offers an after school garden club which focuses on learning and exploring in the garden without instructional parameters. We’ve reached out to three garden club leaders…