Gardening for Food & Composting
Below are resources to help you grow produce with students.
Overview
In Houston, you can grow fruits and vegetables all year long. Here’s a quick overview; contact our local resources for in-depth assistance.
Start with good soil (at least 8 inches of loam). Build your own compost with scraps from the lunchroom.
Plant at the right time. Use this guide PDF (WORD DOC) from Texas A&M AgriLife.
Determine how/who will maintain it, including insect & disease control and watering.
Determine how to incorporate the garden into every classroom.
Use local resources to help you! Call the Master Gardeners in Harris County hotline at 713.274.0950 from 9 - 12 daily, or email phonehcmga@gmail.com.
Local Resources
Urban Harvest (based in Houston):
School Gardening Guide - it’s free!
Take a trip to Finca Tres Robles, just East of downtown, to help on a real, urban farm!
Contact The Garden Club of Houston for grants for your school garden.
SeedMoney Garden Grants - SeedMoney is offering 255 garden grants. Grants are open to all types of public food garden project (youth gardens, community gardens, food bank gardens, etc.) regardless of their location.
Nature’s Way Resources for composting help.
Houston Tool Bank - low-cost tool rental for nonprofits and schools. Why buy it for a one-time use? Borrow it!
Invite Jeremy Peaches of Fresh Life Organics as a guest speaker on entrepreneurship, urban farming with hydroponics, and the benefits of organic food.
Contact Janice Brown with Girl on the Grow for school garden education, school garden professional development, home school garden enrichment classes, or personal home garden coaching.
Virtual Field Trips
Visit an urban farm with Fresh Life Organics.
Part of a series on Green Jobs in Houston. Jeremy is an urban farmer and entrepreneur.
Download corresponding, TEKS-aligned activities for K-12 on soil structure, effects of nitrogen load on plant growth and a sustainable food analysis.
Visit the vegetable garden at Mercer Botanic Garden in Harris County Precinct 4.
Download corresponding, TEKS-aligned activities for K-12 on plant anatomy, germination and butterfly host plants.
Activities/Lessons
Elementary School
Urban Harvest’s Free School Gardening Guide
Junior Master Gardener Program with curriculum for teachers and online games for elementary students.
Composting for Kids by Texas A&M: A step-by-step guide PDF . CLICK HERE FOR WORD DOC
Conduct a Sustainable Food Audit PDF (WORD VERSION HERE) with resources from the National Wildlife Federation.
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality published Waste/Composting lesson plans.
Middle/high School
Urban Harvest’s Free School Gardening Guide. Get tips and tricks for growing vegetables on a school campus in Houston.
Junior Master Gardener Program with curriculum for teachers. Start your own garden on campus, and use it as a living laboratory with students.
Composting by Texas A&M: A step-by-step guide to setting up a compost pile.
Conduct a Sustainable Food Audit with resources from the National Wildlife Federation.
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality published Waste/Composting lesson plans that are geared for K-8, but are easily modified for HS.
Read “The Soil Food Web” by Bob Randall, and visually recreate the food web to show transfer of energy, or identify characteristics (form and function) of organisms, or predict the effect of pesticides on the ecosystem.
“Soil Makes a Good Filter” experiment. Strain Kool-aid through types of soil to see how much is removed - demonstrating its remediation capabilities for industry and how soil filters groundwater. Extend the activity by letting students create their own filters.
“All the Soil Labs You Could Ever Want” for the High School Environmental Science class (AP or Prep) (Microsoft Word or pdf file)
“Toxicity of Herbicides Lab” for the High School Environmental Science or Chemistry class (AP or Prep) with serial dilution (Microsoft Word or pdf file)
Are Organic Foods Worth the Extra Cost? includes 2 jigsaw activities with articles, and a math activity (Microsoft Word or pdf file)
“Gardening and Food Composting 5E Lesson Plan” PDF Version, or Word Version - Science, Middle and High School, applies to the TEKS on human practices and their impact, or decomposition.
Visit the Climate Interactive website for a food system modeling tool. Let student see how decisions in agriculture can be part of the climate change solution.
Use the Virtually WILD video on Fresh Life Organics, which coincides with these three activities on Soil Structure, Effect of Nitrogen Load on Plant Growth and a Sustainable Food Analysis
Videos
Additional, local content found on the CEC Houston YouTube Page.
All about vegetables at Mercer Botanic Garden.
John goes on a field trip to visit Dr. Bob Randall' Permaculture Food Forest in Suburban Houston, Texas.
Hosted by Houston's own Jeremy Peaches, learn about different ways to grow food using aquaponics and hydroponics.
Photo credit: Small Places, LLC.