Edible Gardens « Therapeutic Landscapes Network

“Ecoliteracy Under Our Feet” – Greening Cleveland Elementary School

December 30, 2014 | by Naomi Sachs

For the last Therapeutic Landscapes Network Blog post of 2014, we want to share an inspiring story of one of many schools that that is “greening” its schoolyard. The six gardens and overall ecoliteracy program at Cleveland Elementary School in Oakland, CA were spurred by Mary Schriner, who interviewed for a position there. When they asked her why she wanted to work at Cleveland Elementary, she responded, “Because your school looks like a prison yard, and I’d like to change that.” And she has changed both the school and grounds, and the lives of those who learn and teach there. One of the first conversations with her students began with the question, “What is a weed?” The project has been a tremendous success. Says Schriner, “I’ve had many, many moments when I’ve almost wanted to cry because I can feel the community happening, not because of me, but because of the natural world that we’re trying to create conditions for at the school. There’s been so much magic around the garden that I just have a lot of gratitude.”

Click here to read the full article by The Center for Ecoliteracy‘s senior editor Michael Stone, “So Much Magic Around the Garden.”

Live Long and Landscape: Gardening for Health & Happiness

September 2, 2013 | by Naomi Sachs

Yoga in the garden

Garden Conservancy Seminar at Los Angeles Arboretum:
Live Long and Landscape: Gardening for Health & Happiness

Gardening and healthy living naturally go hand in hand. What could be healthier than eating fresh, homegrown fruits, vegetables, and herbs? On Saturday, October 19, the Garden Conservancy together with the Los Angeles County Arboretum, will be sponsoring a day-long seminar with six speakers who will cover landscaping, edible gardens, outdoor feng shui, and much more. The speakers will share how and why gardening and other outdoor activity are terrific exercise. Gardens are also good for the soul, as peaceful retreats and places to re-energize and de-stress.

For more information about the event or the speakers, visit the Garden Conservancy website . Learn more about the speakers by reading their bios.

What: Garden Conservancy Seminar – lectures, lunch, book signings, and guided garden walks

When: Saturday, October 19, 2013

Where: Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Garden, 301 North Baldwin Avenue, Arcadia, CA 91007

Time: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Get an early start by joining a yoga class in the garden at 7:45 a.m.)

You may register online or by calling 845.424.6500. Registration is $80 for members and $90 general admission.

Children & Youth Garden Symposium: Register by 7/23!

June 21, 2013 | by Naomi Sachs

The American Horticultural Society’s 2013 National Children & Youth Garden Symposium takes place at the Denver Botanic Gardens July 11-13, 2013, with pre-symposium garden tours on July 10 and 11.

In addition to a host of seminars, attendees will have the chance to participate in tours of the Denver Urban Gardens, The Gardens on Spring Creek (Fort Collins, CO) and Cheyenne Botanic Gardens (Cheyenne, WY). The event’s prime sponsor, The American Horticultural Society, has organized more than 50 workshops in six categories including Curriculum, Garden Design and Maintenance, Horticultural Science, Horticutural Therapy, Literature, and Policy.

Keynote speakers
The first of three keynote speakers is environmental psychologist Louise Chawla, Professor of Environmental Design at the University of Colorado.
As Associate Director of the Children, Youth and Environments Center for Community Engagement. Marcia Eames-Sheavly is a senior lecturer as well as children and youth program leader for Cornell Garden-Based Learning in Ithaca, NY.
David Sobel, Senior Faculty in the Education Department at Antioch University in Keene, NH. He is the author of seven books and more than 60 articles focused on children and nature for educators, parents, environmentalists and school administrators.

Pre-symposium garden tours July 10 and 11
Denver Urban Gardens supports one of the largest school garden networks in the United States. In this tour you will see three school gardens and learn how they foster community, health, and education. A youth-led farmer’s market at Fairview School Community Garden, a schoolyard farm at Denver Green School Community Garden supplying the cafeteria salad bar managed by Sprout City Farms, and integrated nutrition and science classes at Bradley International School’s Heather Regan Memorial Garden will be some of the dynamic aspects of youth gardening we will encounter.

The Gardens on Spring Creek and Cheyenne Botanic Gardens are public gardens that serve as models for children’s gardening due to their dedicated interest in making gardens a safe, enjoyable, and educational environment for children and youth. Staff at each location will give personalized tours while highlighting the history and development of these children’s gardens, as well as their hands-on methods of educational programming.

A sampler of symposium workshops

Benefits of School Gardens
Cross-Curricular Cooking
Slow Food in the Garden
Little Budget, Big Impact! Hands-on Lessons, Few Supplies
Sensory Gardens that Maximize Play
Learning Gardens: Making Outdoor Education Irresistible, Relevant and Resilient
Your Garden Toolkit: The Right Tools for a Children’s Garden
Lessons for Today’s Children’s Garden Educators
Discover Fun and Interesting Fruits and Veggies for the Garden
Teachable Landscapes: Using Gardens for Informal Science Learning

The symposium is also offering three Horticultural Therapy sessions:

Operating a Greenhouse with Special Needs Students
Horticultural Therapy and Junior Master Gardeners
Horticultural Therapy: Gardening with Pediatric Patients in a Hospital Environment

In 1993 the American Horticultural Society saw a need to reconnect children with nature, and created the first Children & Youth Garden Symposium. If you wish to register the July 2013 conference, visit the registration page. Learn more details by visiting the overview page which offers a day-by-day schedule of workshops and activities. If you have specific queries, contact the American Horticultural Society, 703.768.5700 or webmaster@ahs.org.

Food gardens are healing gardens – Guest post by Filiz Satir

January 3, 2013 | by Naomi Sachs

A boy and his homegrown berries.

“Food insecurity can have wide-ranging detrimental consequences on the physical and mental health of adults (and) more vulnerable populations…Lack of access to a nutritious and adequate food supply has implications not only for the development of physical and mental disease, but also behaviors and social skills.” — Feeding America, U.S. hunger-relief charity

Food gardens are healing gardens
Guest post by Filiz Satir

Families with limited incomes often lack the means to put fresh, nutritious food on the table. In the “land of plenty” a stunning 1 in 6 adults, and 1 in 5 children suffer from poor nutrition and struggle with hunger.

In addition to food assistance programs, food banks and other hunger relief groups, American cities are witnessing a growth in urban agriculture and associated non-profits working to fight food insecurity. Programs that support urban and suburban food production are providing low-income families with the skills and tools to grow fresh, local and healthy food. One such group is Seattle’s Just Garden Project that builds home gardens for eligible families living 200 percent below the poverty line in King County, Washington.

“We are spreading the use of household gardens to help end hunger, improve day-to-day food security and decrease food-related health issues in lower income families,” says Stephanie Seliga, manager of Just Garden Project (JGP). Now in its third year, JGP builds 30 kitchen gardens a year for eligible low-income families and vulnerable groups. The recipients’ participation in the garden “build outs,” shifts their personal experience with food from one of being a consumer only to being a producer.

(more…)

“From Motown to Growtown!” – Documentary ‘Urban Roots’ on farms, community gardens, and food justice in Detroit, MI

July 28, 2011 | by Naomi Sachs

Urban Roots poster by Shepard Fairy

Last night I watched the excellent and inspiring documentary ‘Urban Roots‘ at the Horticultural Society of New York. It’s a film about urban farmers, gardeners, and food and community activists who are taking over the hundreds (thousands?) of acres of vacant lots in Detroit, MI and making them into productive landscapes that address ecological and economic problems at the same time – in other words, healing Detroit by healing and cultivating the earth. Or as one young woman said, “turning Motown into Growtown!” And it’s happening elsewhere, too. For example, at the Healing Landscapes Sustainability Symposium in Cleveland, OH this past February, I learned of several similar projects in the Cleveland area, and even in my own city of Beacon, NY, we have the Green Teen program, which “empowers urban youth to be effective community change-agents by immersing them in the local food system” and the CSA (community-supported agriculture) Common Ground Farm.

What impressed me about the movement in Detroit is individuals working at a grass-roots level (no pun intended…) to solve deep economic, social, and environmental problems for themselves instead of waiting for someone to give them a hand and do it for them. In other words, self-determination.

Some of the projects and places in the film: Brother Nature Produce, D-Town Farms, Field of Dreams (FOOD), Grown in Detroit, Eastern Market, Farnsworth Community Garden, Elmhurst, and Earthworks Urban Farm.

At the Therapeutic Landscapes Network, we focus on gardens and landscapes in the healthcare setting and on research and evidence-based design, because no other organization is doing this kind of work on an interdisciplinary level. But our mission is to serve as a “knowledge base and gathering space about healing gardens, restorative landscapes, and other green spaces that promote health and well-being.” That means any landscape, wild or designed, urban or suburban or rural, large or small, that facilitates health. And preferably the health of not just humans but animals and the planet as a whole.

For information on these broader topics, visit our website’s Other Healing Landscapes section. We’re still adding to this, but right now we have pages on community gardens, gardens in prisons, and memorial gardens. Input and suggestions are always welcome.

Thanks to the Horticultural Society of New York for screening the film, to Mark McInnis for making the film, and most of all, to the people of Detroit for their inspiring work. Keep on growing!

Wordless Wednesday, 7/27/11 – Tomato from Hearthstone

July 27, 2011 | by Naomi Sachs

Tomato, Hearthstone Alzheimer Care, Marlborough, MA. Photo by Naomi Sachs

A tomato, full of promise, from the one of the raised beds at Hearthstone Alzheimer Care in Marlborough, MA.

Here’s an interview with President and Co-founder John Zeisel about the garden at Hearthstone: www.thehearth.org/imaginationinterview.html.

Wordless Wednesday, 6/8/11 – Juneberries

June 8, 2011 | by Naomi Sachs

Harvesting (and eating!) fruit from the serviceberry/Juneberry tree. Photo by Naomi Sachs

For more about the joys of edible gardens, see Edible Gardens Are Healing Gardens (apologies for the small text – reformatting from Blogger to WordPress move has not been done yet).

This Friday! Horticultural Society of NY presents Horticultural Therapy Partnership Forum, Food 4 Thought

March 9, 2010 | by Naomi Sachs

Image courtesy of HSNY

This Friday, 3/12, the Horticultural Society of New York presents its 4th Annual Horticultural Therapy Partnership Forum, “Food 4 Thought.” What a great line-up! I’m so excited to get to meet and hear from all of these amazing people. Click HERE to link to the HSNY info and registration page.

Morning topics and speakers are:

“Horticultural Therapy at the Rikers Island,” with Hilda Krus, HTR, Director of GreenHouse, HSNY
“Horticultural Therapy for People Living with HIV/AIDS,” with Liza Watkins of Bailey Holt House and Sandra Power of the Horticultural Therapy Institute

An afternoon panel will be moderated by Ronnit Bendavid-Val, Director of Citywide Horticulture, NYC Dept. of Parks & Recreation. Panelist topics and presenters include:

“Urban Farming, Farm Stands, & Markets,” with Jane Hodge, City Farms Manager, Just Food and Rev. Robert Jackson, Co-founder of Brooklyn Rescue Mission
“Horticulture Across Generations,” with Arthur Sheppard, Goddard Riverside
“Partnering Medical & Social Research,” with Anne Wiesen, Co-founder & Executive Director of Meristem and Naomi Sachs, Founder & Director of the Therapeutic Landscapes Network
“Physical Therapy and Gardening,” with Karen Washington, Physical Therapist, President of NYC Community Gardens Coalition, and Co-founder of La Familia Verde Gardens Coalition.

Anne Wiesen, my co-presenter, is also the co-editor of the book Restorative Commons: Creating Health and Well-Being through Urban Landscapes,” which you can read a review of on this blog post.

This forum is one of several great upcoming events. I haven’t had the chance to blog about each and every one, so please visit the “Upcoming Events” area (right-hand column, about half-way down) to see what’s going on in your area (geographically or professionally). And as always, if you have events that you want others to know about, contact the TLN and we’ll get it posted.

Image courtesy of HSNY

Guest Blog Post by Shawna Coronado: Ball Horticulture Teaches Employees How To Tend To Nature and Their Health by Building a Community Garden

September 11, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

Thanks to conservation/green/community/health guru Shawna Coronado for this excellent guest blog post about Ball Horticulture’s transition for lawn to employee-run community gardens.

Think about this – across the globe many businesses, churches, synagogues, mosques, and community centers are surround by a sea of an utterly useless plant – grass! What positive effect does acres of grass have for an organization? You cannot feed people on grass. American businesses and organizations use tons of chemicals to maintain the grass, which then cause damage to our water tables nationwide. If we are not mowing grass with carbon producing equipment, we are wasting water on it. This is such a tremendous and inane waste of our resources. It simply makes no sense.

My proposal to you dear reader – follow Ball Horticulture’s example of ditching some of the grass and building a healthy community. Ball Horticulture’s exciting move has been to do something about all that useless grass. They have created one of the first employee-run community gardens in the nation.

There is an unfathomable connection between nature and health. Healthy veggies grown with no chemicals; sunshine which produces good mood endorphins in our brains when we are exposed to it; fresh air which is a welcome escape from the confines of the typical closed environment office. This is just the beginning of what Ball Horticulture hopes to encourage with the creation of the Ball Horticulture Employee Community Garden.

Susan Schmitz, Trials and Education Manager, gave me a tour of the community gardens. Overflowing with every vegetable imaginable, 120 employees have come together to grow their own fresh food in 5’ X 8’ plots. According to Susan, half of those participating had never grown a vegetable before in their lives.

While Ball Horticulture is obviously experienced with plants, they realized that their various employees might not be. Therefore, to assure a higher success rate, Susan and her team came together to host seasonal training workshops. Knowing that veggies can quickly get out of hand in size, Susan felt the first step was having the employees understand what a 5’ X 8’ plot would look like. She taped the plot out on the floor and set out a couple plants on the imaginary plot to demonstrate spacing.

Education soon expanded to planting, weeding, and maintenance concerns, eventually growing into what veggies might be planted late in the season after the spring veggies peaked.

Susan also had a bi-weekly email resource and a company bulletin board established for further assistance with seasonal Ball Hort Veggie Plot Board suggestions and questions which might help the employees have a better chance of succeeding.

Soon employees were growing masses of veggies and feeling very proud of themselves. They weigh each garden’s harvest on a produce scale so they can keep track of just how much locally grown and healthy food was produced. Many individuals choose to give all their veggies to the Giving Gardens Program, which donates the food to local food pantry’s.

While visiting the gardens, I was astounded at how truly beautiful they are. Each plot is labeled with the “owner’s” name, giving the employees a strong sense of ownership, responsibility, and accomplishment. Therefore, they are all wonderfully maintained.

Please make a difference in your community by helping people in this difficult economic time. All you businesses, churches, synagogues, mosques, and community centers do your community a favor – DITCH THE GRASS and BUILD A GARDEN. Make a difference today!

Shawna Lee Coronado is an author, locally syndicated newspaper columnist, health, and greening expert focused on teaching and living a green lifestyle. Shawna has been featured on ABC News (Chicago), WGN 9 News (Chicago), Oklahoma Gardening TV and Local Access 10 TV.

Special written features on Shawna can be found on CNN Health,

Chicago Tribune Local,and The Daily Herald (see Media Coverage).

Visit Shawna’s prime website for more information on her books and other media – www.thecasualgardener.com. Be sure to visit www.gardeningnude.com for lots more conservation, greening and health tips.

Edible Gardens are Healing Gardens

August 30, 2009 | by Naomi Sachs

Image courtesy of Anne Dailey

I can’t believe summer’s almost over. It flew by this year. Depending on where you are in this country, or in the world, your growing season is coming to a close (or just beginning, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere – lucky you!). Here in the Hudson Valley, we’ve got a couple of months left before a hard frost hits, with end-of-the-summer treats like corn, tomatoes (though many fewer this year due to the blight), peppers, and melons. In my own tiny raised bed garden, I’ve got tomatoes, chard, arugula, and lots of herbs.

I’ve been thinking a lot about edible gardens as healing landscapes. After all, food is life. What could be more nurturing than good, healthy food? And not just nutritionally, though most of us know by now that the closer our food source is, the more nutrients (and flavor) it has to offer. On top of all that, there is something nurturing to the spirit about growing and eating your own food. Whether you have a few pots of herbs and tomatoes on the deck or fire escape, or an acre of land to tend, or a plot in a community garden or CSA (community-supported agriculture), an edible garden is a healing garden for body and soul.

Alice Waters, Deborah Madison, Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, and even Martha Stewart, to name just a few, are some of the more well-known advocates of eating locally, slowly, and sustainably. The locavore/backyard (and front yard!) farmer/victory garden movement has exploded, and lots of individuals, families, schools, communities, the New York Botanical Garden – heck, even the first family – are getting in on the grow-and-eat-your-own action. And there’s a plethora of information out there. On twitter alone, I’m following over two dozen people and organizations devoted to small-scale/local farming and agriculture and edible gardens. Not sure when to plant radishes? Debating about sowing a cover crop? Thinking of saving seeds from your heirloom squash? Just google it. A great example low-tech analog and high-tech digital living happily ever after.

And what a great learning experience for children, to know not only what real zucchini or blueberries or carrots taste like, but how they grow (vine, bush, in the ground below those frilly green tops).

Image courtesy of Allison Vallin and A Tasteful Garden

This New York Times “One in 8 Million” piece on Buster English in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood really touched me, and hits on several of the ideas in this post.

To really get the most out of your edible garden as healing garden, here are some suggestions:

1. Grow organic: Avoid pesticides and herbicides. After all, a big part of growing your own food is creating a healthier alternative for you, your family and friends, and your neighbors. The people and the soil and the creatures who live in and around it will thank you.

2. Start small: If you’ve never “farmed” before, don’t take on too much at once. Plant what (or maybe even less than) you think you’ll need or that you have time to tend. Nothing puts a damper on your enjoyment of a garden like feeling overwhelmed, guilty, or inept. You can always do more next year.

3. Grow stuff you really like, or that you can’t get enough of locally (for example, even if I wanted to buy sorrel, it just isn’t available around here; and the first thing I’d plant if I had more space would be a fig tree); or that’s expensive to buy at the store/market (another example: I don’t grow potatoes or onions because I can get them cheap. Arugula, on the other hand…).

4. Teach the children: Put your kids to work! Or better yet, set aside a part of the garden that’s just for them. Radishes, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, peas, and many herbs are easy to grow, even from seed. Here’s an article on the “top ten” kid-friendly veggies (and fruit) and another on the ones that might be a bit more of a challenge. What magic, to put a tiny radish seed into the ground, to water and care for it, to see a tiny shoot emerge, to tend it some more, and then pull it out of the ground and savor its bright pink, spicy peppery crispness. And what joy to be a part of that discovery and delight.

5. Include your elders. Maybe it’s your parents, or your grandparents, or other relatives, or the elderly couple that lives down the street. Maybe it’s residents of a nearby senior center. Many people from earlier generations grew up farming, or at least tending a kitchen garden, and they have knowledge and stories to share. In return, you can share some of your bounty with them. If I had my druthers, intergenerational gardening would be the next big thing.

6. And speaking of which: Share! If for no other reason than to impress your neighbors with your farming acumen, give some of your harvest away. What a truly generous gift.

7. And last but not least: Enjoy. Every time I bite into one of my home-grown tomatoes, I’m blown away not just by the taste; I also feel a deep sense of wonder and gratitude. Such beauty, such flavor, such nourishment. To me, that’s about as healing as it gets.

Image courtesy of Claire Brown and Plant Passion