Square foot gardening makes garden planning simple by literally dividing your garden into 1×1 foot squares, and telling you how many plants of each type can grow in each! This blog post shows how to use Microsoft Excel to plan a garden using the square foot gardening method. Excellent for raised beds and planting with younger students. View Resource »
Indoor Gardening At School
Every fall, we put the garden to bed and wait out the long Wisconsin winter for spring to return. Creating a garden indoors is a wonderful way to continue hands-on, garden-based learning while the snow flies, and often gives students a chance to take a closer look at what’s happening with their plants. This brief gives an overview of some of the indoor gardening options available to schools, and resources for how to create them. Download Brief »
Farm to School Teaching Resources
This website, based out of North Carolina, has some excellent lessons and recipes for the school garden! Lessons are sorted by grade level, from PreK through high school. View Resource »
Wisconsin in the Classroom
This website has links to many garden lesson plans and activities, including fun facts and hands-on activities. View Resource »
Troy Farm Soil Mix
This recipe works well, and is much cheaper than buying bagged potting soil if you are planning to start more than a few trays of seeds. You can also turn this into a great lesson about sustainability by discussing the benefits and drawbacks of different ingredients – i.e. peat makes wonderful soil mix, but what is the environmental impact? Is there a better alternative? For a great lesson about plant nutrients, minerals, and/or compost, try making your own seed-starting soil mix. View Resource »
