Kids Growing Strong and the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show are very please to announce an extended partnership starting in 2014. The San Francisco show has been purchased and is now being managed by a new partnership including Sherry Larsen, an accomplished event producer and owner of Cal State Shows, and Maryanne Lucas, the Founder of Kids Growing Strong.

A new generation of gardeners will find many parts of the show completely "remodeled" just for them;  a wondrous place full of beauty, interesting people and exciting things to learn and enjoy... the perfect place to develop a love of flowers and gardens, an appreciation and respect for the natural world around us, and the basis for a healthy and happy life through gardening.

What Makes a School Garden Successful?

...it's the PEOPLE!

School gardens come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Their outdoor educational opportunities can be limitless. With childhood obesity more than doubling in children and tripling in adolescents, school gardens can help address positive environmental lifestyle changes, increase physical activity, and help develop good citizenship in our youth and their families.

Kids Growing Strong has written previously about how to plan a school garden, what is required structurally, irrigation choices, curricular focus, and about sustainability.  As a school garden advisor with multiple school garden implementations under my belt over the past few years at both elementary and middle school levels, I continue to self-assess, increasing the value of the advisory role with real world “school garden” observations. Realizing gardening is a huge, constantly changing experiment; sometimes we fail, sometimes we succeed. In the end, we assess, learn, adapt, and try again.

First hand experience suggests that what truly makes school gardens successful aren’t the planter boxes, sprinklers, or even the plants chosen. Though all those are important factors in successful gardening, it’s the PEOPLE who make school gardens successful. Gardens that were built by the community they serve (the students), led by teachers with strong parent groups, have greater success, satisfaction, and sustainability.

Rescue Gnome Case #001

   Shalom Christian Academy, San Jose Preschool writes:

"First of all, we did "grass buddy" activities at school today. Kids had so
much fun making grass buddy putting grass seeds and soil. Parents were very
impressed about what kids made. Thank you for giving me this great
opportunities teaching children how to plant seeds with having fun at the
same time.

I am sending you the picture of our gardening area.
It looks really bad right now.
We stopped using this gardening box for a long time.

Any suggestions?"