school gardens – Enviro Updates

Camp for environmental learning, inclusivity this summer in Guerneville

May 30, 2026

Janet Perry, PRESS DEMOCRAT

School Garden Network’s new summer camp to be held at Solar Punk Farms

Schoolyards across Sonoma County have become places of bounty, learning and healing through the advent of school gardens. Teachers take classes out into those gardens where they incorporate the beautiful space into an outdoor learning lab for math and science as well as writing, art and more. Students who are anxious are able to find peace and solace there that helps them to regulate their nervous systems. Many of those gardens were started with the help of the School Garden Network.

There are now around 150 school gardens in the School Garden Network. Once those gardens are established the network helps teachers by providing resources such as plants and seeds as well as hosting helpful workshops throughout the school year.

Since 2021 the School Garden Network has also been hosting weeklong summer day camps where students learn new skills, make new friends and enjoy time in the garden. The team behind the network includes Sue Davis, executive director; Jesse Schmieg, Summer Garden Camp manager; and Hayley Dougan, farm manager at Solar Punk Farms where the newest camp takes place.

Agriculture/Food System, Local Organizations, Sustainable Livingenvironmental education, gardening, School Garden Network, school gardens

Santa Rosa students' garden harvest goes to school lunches

September 12, 2014

Jamie Hansen, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Santa Rosa High School agriculture students headed to their garden in northern Santa Rosa early Tuesday morning to harvest watermelons, tomatoes and other produce destined for the plates of other Santa Rosa students.

In a twist on the farm-to-table movement, the students this year are learning to grow produce that will end up not in fancy restaurants but in grade-school cafeterias.

“I think this is a great way to show Santa Rosa our hard work,” said 12th-grader Takota Tuinstra, 17, as she pulled weeds from a pumpkin patch in the early-morning fog. “Other schools don’t have an opportunity to grow their own food, and maybe we can inspire other kids.”

She and other environmental horticulture and viticulture students were harvesting vegetables planted by a summer class of 15 students, who got credit for spending about 150 hours tending the 1.5-acre garden located between Highway 101 and Old Redwood Highway near Cardinal Newman High School.

Agriculture/Food Systemfood growing, school gardens

Student farm and garden program loses land

March 4, 2014

Kerry Benefield, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Four Santa Rosa schools are scrambling to find land to continue their farm and garden programs after losing a long-term lease negotiated through a nonprofit group.

Students from Montgomery and Cardinal Newman high schools, as well as Village Charter School and Roseland Collegiate Prep, have in some cases spent years planting and harvesting crops on about two acres of land on Angela Drive near the former Ursuline High School in Santa Rosa.

The deal, coordinated through the nonprofit Cultivating Impact program, gave students access to a certified organic farm while allowing some stud

via Santa Rosa, school garden, Cardinal Newman, Cultivating Impact | PressDemocrat.com.

Agriculture/Food System, Land Use, Sustainable Livingschool gardens