Hidden Student Gardens

By Suzie Heap

Please walk with me into the magical hidden student gardens of our Coronado schools. Many exciting gardens are being planted and maintained by students within their campuses. I visited Christ Church Day School (CCDS), Coronado High School (CHS), Coronado Middle School (CMS), Strand Elementary, and CHS Special Ed.

CCDS gardens by classroom so each class has their own special garden. The Jr. K teacher Shanda Munoz and students Reagan and Sydney guided me by their flower boxes filled with petunias, snapdragons and vegetable boxes filled with red and green peppers as well as green beans and tomatoes. In other boxes I saw succulents and cacti.

Students from the Sr. K through sixth grade shared their classroom boxes. Zaihab, Grace, and Mia shared their third grade pizza garden. Basil, oregano, thyme, along with arugula, chard, snap peas and cucumbers grow there. Toady, the frog, was protecting fennel, green onions, tomatoes and zucchini. Marigolds were planted there also to discourage pests.

Emily from the second grade shared her classroom’s healthy salad garden box featuring carrots, kale, snap peas and flowers for the bees and butterflies.

Hannah and Massi from the Sr. K have a flower garden with the Coronado yellow hibiscus, snap dragons, strawberries, sweet alyssum, and milkweed along with pest discouraging marigold plants.

First grade students, Evie and Mason, shared that they are also growing a pizza garden. They have parsley, arugula, tomatoes, green bell peppers and jalapeño peppers. Just a guess, but I think some pizza lunches will be enjoyed by students before the end of the school year.

Taylor and Kiera from the fifth grade shared their Three Sisters Native American garden. This garden grows corn, pole beans and squash. The corn provides a natural pole for the beans to climb. The shallow rooted squash becomes a living mulch shading emerging weeds and preventing soil moisture from evaporating.

Asher and Bennett shared their fourth grade vegetable garden. This classroom is growing broccoli, carrots and snap peas, yum!

Sixth graders, Jacob and Jacqulyn shared their pollinator garden which the class has planted to attract bees and butterflies.

CHS and CMS have Garden Club and Emerald Keepers gardens over seen by Tara Davies, the teen librarian at our Coronado Public Library. The CHS Garden Club has 20-30 members gardening in its memorial Angela’s Garden named after a former high school student from many years ago. There are sixteen dedicated interns who work the garden every other Saturday, Jesse, the Garden Club President tells me.

Plants in this garden are grown from seed. During the year one can see radish, kale, lettuce, carrot, beet plants and russet potatoes here. Even peanuts are grown here! There are usually two harvests a year. The last harvest gave 30 pounds of vegetables to Father Joe’s Village Food Bank. I also saw garlic, tomatoes, chamomile, and rosemary here. There are peas growing to trail on the fence and of course strawberry plants can be seen also. Compost bins stand near by and an Eagle Scout is working on a shade structure for a worm bin. The corners of the garden have a lemon tree and a tangerine tree.

The CMS garden is a new one this year just starting up with spring planting between rain storms. Growing currently are lettuce, tomatoes, as well as French lavender, English thyme and pineapple sage. This garden is maintained during the school year.

The CHS Special Education Room 701 with Mrs. Quinley and students Max and Sara is a new garden inside of the campus; the former one suffered a flood and had to be removed.

Max and Sara shared with me via American Sign Language the Islander Memorial Garden which they just landscaped by planting jade and aeonium around the memorial marker. This memorial honors CHS students who have passed on.

My last but certainly not least school garden visit this rainy year was to Silver Strand Elementary School. This school has a Garden Club garden overseen by faculty member Sophia Frost and creative parent volunteer Sara Lopez. In this large garden nestled between the bay and the ocean one has the feeling of being in a garden resort. There is a tweedle bug bed of sweet peas, blue flax and sunflowers gardened by grades one, two and three after school.

A “berry berry quite contrary” garden box holds strawberry and blackberry plants. The little gardeners grow borage there also as a companion plant because it is said to make strawberries sweeter. I saw a succulent garden, and a lettuce bed with arugula, Swiss chard, kale and butter lettuce. The students of the club weed and transplant these garden beds during lunch on Friday and on Wednesday after school.

One sees in this garden a pollinator bed with lavender, lantana, parsley, and dill for the swallow tail butterflies. All pollinators are welcome here. An aromatherapy bed close by has a scented geranium, rosemary, lemon grass, peppermint, chamomile, lavender, sage, and some carnations.

Our Coronado students are certainly lucky to be learning life time skills with their work in these beautiful gardens.