February is a Good Month for Garden Planning

. Kids in 39 Wyoming Public Schools STEAM  classrooms, 7 Team 21 after-school programs, 2 classrooms at South Elementary in Grandville, and 4 classrooms at Countryside Elementary in Byron Center, all planned their summer gardens in February. They began by learning why planting a variety of fruits and vegetables helps protect the garden from being […]

Pinecones Are For The Birds

Our Team 21 kids at 10 schools in Wyoming used pinecones, shortening, and bird seed in January to make pinecone bird feeders to hang in their school gardens. Pine cones are the perfect vessel for a handmade bird feeder. Our feathered friends are getting a winter treat made by the hands of children. If you […]

Gardening in January in west Michigan? Yes!

  This month we installed a regenerative, no-till school garden at Godfrey Early Childhood Center in Wyoming. We were greeted with sunshine as we engaged in the process of covering the ground with cardboard, paper, leaves, and mulch. Soon a blanket of snow will cover the layers causing them to break down and create a […]

Is it Dirt or is it Soil?

This month 850 students at 3 Wyoming schools learned that “soil” is the scientific name for the ground in their school garden. They discovered that soil has both living (organisms, decaying matter. air and water) and non-living (clay, sand, silt) parts and that it is the living parts that add important nutrients to our food. […]

A New School Garden Install

Super Garden XV! Our recipe for a new garden at Godwin Middle School Ingredients: A big dump truck full of wood mulch (10 yards) A truck load of composted mulch (7 yards) At least 20 yard-waste bags of fall leaves Many sheets of cardboard from collapsed boxes 20 – 7th and 8th grade students 7 […]

Garden Paths for Happy Feet

  Sometimes little feet are so happy to be exploring in the garden they forget where it is safe for them to go. “Oh no was that a plant?” We want the children to feel free to roam through and enjoy their school gardens and at the same time preserve and protect what they have […]

Herb Gardens for Seniors

Part of our mission at H.O.P.E Gardens (Helping Other People Eat) is to inspire our student gardeners to not only grow food for themselves but to also consider helping the people in their community have access to healthy garden produce. Our middle and junior high students embraced the challenge by planting beautiful herb gardens as […]

Bugs in Our Garden!

Summer garden students could hardly contain their excitement as they turned over rocks, looked under plants and dug in the soil in order to observe the abundance of bugs living in and around their school gardens. They compared the creatures they captured to pictures that revealed which ones were beneficial to the garden and which […]

Learning About Worms

The kids got excited about digging for worms in our worm farm and learning about the important role worms play in garden soil. They learned that worms loosen soil by creating tunnels that make it easier for the roots of plants to stretch out and also allow rain and air into the soil. They fed […]

Staff Spotlight: Meet Arthur Gardine!

This year, we transitioned from having students helping in the gardens to working with only staff and a few volunteers, and found we needed extra help.  In June, we hired our first youth employee, Arthur Gardine. Arthur first learned of H.O.P.E. Gardens when he was a 6th grade student at South Elementary. He helped install […]

* indicates required