Edible Gardens & Environment

PSGC began its work on food systems literacy by funding, establishing and maintaining Edible Gardens at all six schools in the Princeton Public Schools district. Our next step was to fund Edible Gardens stewards/instructors to make each garden unique to its students and to foster curricular connections and to connect children to the natural systems that support all life.

Select a school from the drop-down menu to see edible garden activity there.

Greening the courtyards

by

As construction continues at Princeton High School, the Edible Gardens remain in storage, leaving fewer opportunities for students to connect with nature in a delicious way. So we celebrate the Princeton High School teachers who are working with Princeton Education Foundation “to transform the courtyards within the high school building into spaces where students can take a breath in natural surroundings.” Town Topics writes: 

The teachers, Paula Jakowlew, Cynthia Bregenzer, Keith Dewey, Joseph Gargione, Bryan Hoffman, and Bridget Schmidt, will design, organize and implement “The Natural Wellness Project,” which will include plants, trees, flowers, artwork, seating, and meditative spaces. Later phases of the project include a cafe courtyard. Students may gain community service credit for helping to implement the design.

 

Here’s a throwback to 2009 and the PHS Edible Gardens raising, when PSGC and some 75 community members showed up to build and fill 13 raised garden beds in a day: 

 

School-grown greens in winter?

by

Edible gardens at Littlebrook are expanding to the school lobby. As Anne Levin writes in the Town Topics piece: 

In the lobby of Littlebrook Elementary School, two white, vertical fixtures will soon be covered with green. They are part of a recently installed hydroponic garden, designed to allow students who tend the raised bed gardens outside to continue their efforts indoors, during the winter months.The installation is a pilot program of Send Hunger Packing Princeton (SHUPP), which founder Ross Wishnick hopes to expand.

April 2021

by

Riverside is excited about the upcoming Garden State on Your Plate list – sweet potatoes & strawberries are favorites. An upcoming project with Rutgers: 250 seeds for a statewide Master Gardener trial to determine preferred pruning practices by weighing harvests.

Edible Gardens will again rent Mason Bees again and soon will share last spring’s videos. Has offered STEAM programming to Riverside PreK in coordination with the Science/STEAM teacher, but with less than half the children in school, it’s a challenge. Plans are to continue the after-school garden sessions.