Now that we've looked at why children need school gardens, and how gardens improve academic performance, let's look at how to build the garden in this article. DFW has heavy clay soil in most areas, and so in this guide we're going to avoid the heavy work of doing anything to the existing soil. You'll just cover the existing grass with mulch (and a weed barrier), wait a few months, then come back and plant. Very simple. Very low-cost and it gets the job done. Once you have your installation all planned, feel free to use one of our garden design templates as you think about how you want your school garden to look.
How to Build a School Garden
$280 for a 400 SF Garden
A 400 square foot community butterfly garden can be built for $280. If you and three friends can pitch in $70 each, you can start a garden at your public school. In this article, we'll show you step-by-step exactly how to build a community garden with drought-tolerant, butterfly-attracting plants that require no soil amendments or expensive irrigation setup that can break (or cost money for water).
Your $70 creates a permanent space in the community, with perennial plants that come back every year, getting bigger each year, and open to everyone in the community who needs a space for nature therapy. That's probably one of the best ways to invest $70 into your community. This community garden will be home to 40 plants that are native or very well adapted to our hot and dry DFW summers. The ongoing cost of maintaining the garden will be minimal. With no irrigation system needed (that could break and require repairs), and no watering bills, the only ongoing cost of the garden is a bit of spring and fall maintenance of the plants. At Soils Alive, we offer PTA members who volunteer at a school garden $120/year in savings on our lawn care services.
What You'll Need
- 4 small stakes or flags
- Free mulch (from the city or ISD)
- 4" plants (40 for $200, 80 for $400)
- Community members to donate for the plants (4 people at $50, or 8 at $50).
- Thick painter's paper ($40 per roll, 2 rolls for up to 500 SF and 4 rolls for up to 1000 SF)
- PTA funds ($80-160, for the paper)
- 3 wheelbarrows
- 3 shovels
- 1 rake
- 4 hand trowels
- Scissors
- 25' tape measure
- 4-8 Volunteers to build
- 4-8 Volunteers for annual maintenance
When to Get Started
You'll want to start mulching your garden area 3 months before you plant, to give the mulch enough time to block the sunlight and rot away the grass roots underneath. If you can't wait 3 months, you could use a tiller and till just 3" deep to chop up the existing grass vegetation....to speed up the grass decomposition. If you want to install your plants April 1st, you'll want to get this step done anytime from September 1 to January 1, when the weather is cool. If you want to install plants on October 1st, you'll want to get this step done from March 1 - July 1, before it gets hot.
If you install your plants in the spring (April 1), keep in mind that you'll need to provide extra water to these plants during their first summer. That's fine if the garden is within 100' of a water source (at a school) but that could be a problem at a city park far from water.
Preparing the Garden Site
Check with the school or city to ensure there's no underground utilities running through your site (and get permission for the garden of course). Then stake off the four corners of the community garden site with four flags or garden stakes, set about 1' beyond the perimeter of the garden. Once staked out, have the site mowed as low as possible. Then ask to have it gone over with a string trimmer/weed-eater to scalp the grass very short, all the way to the ground level. Get your woodchips delivered as close to the garden site as possible, to avoid the work of hauling the chips far with a wheelbarrow. Dump trucks shouldn't be driving over underground irrigation pipes, so keep that in mind as you plan your delivery.
Rake away any sharp sticks/rocks that may be on the site. Next lay thick painter's paper across the site. On top of this first layer, run a second layer, covering up the joints of the first layer. For a 400-500 SF garden, you'll need 2 rolls of 3'x166' (costs $80 for both). For a 800-1000 SF garden, you'll need 4 rolls ($160). It's worth every penny to help suppress weeds and kill the grass without using herbicide or needing to till the area.....and easier to handle with a compact roll than lots of cardboard boxes broken down.
Next spread 2" of wood chip mulch on top of the paper, starting at the perimeter of the garden. As you lay the mulch, you can push the wheelbarrow over the areas already covered to spread in towards the center. Be careful to not puncture or damage the paper, as this is what keeps the grass covered, depriving it of sunlight to rot the roots away. Any puncture is an opportunity for the grass to poke through. You can keep a few scraps of paper, in case you need to patch any "holes."
If you and three other volunteers arrive at a mowed/scalped site, with your mulch pile already delivered, with 3 wheelbarrows, 3 shovels, and 1 rake, plan on spending about 4-5 hours to get this job done. Lay out the paper. Use a bit of mulch to weigh down the sides. Three people will load up and dump the chips, and the fourth will rake it to a 2" depth.
How Much Mulch?
If you're asking the city or ISD to deliver free mulch....how much should you ask for? You'll need between 6-14 cubic yards, depending on the size garden you want, which is about 20-40% of a standard dump truck capacity (25 cubic yards, for a truck that's 8.5' wide by 24.5' long). An entire dump truck can bring 675 cubic feet....enough to cover a 2000 SF area 4" deep.
Your garden will need just 2" of mulch. Next year, as the mulch breaks down, you'll want to add more to any bare spots in the garden. Starting out, you'll need 3-7 cubic yards of material. But it's a good idea to get twice this much delivered, and pile the extra just outside the garden, to have for the next few years of maintenance. That's 6-14 cubic yards.
Planting Day
Once the mulch has been spread and covered the site for at least 3 months, all the rain the site has received has kept the soil moist, where beneficial bacteria and fungi have been breaking down the grass roots. If you tilled the site, you can plant right away. If not tilled, give the area at least 3 months. You'll probably start finding earthworms coming to the site, with the mulch keeping the site cooler, blocking the heat of the sun, and keeping in more soil moisture too. When it's time to plant, you can take your garden design and measure out where each plant should go.
On your paper garden design, 1" = 2 feet. Measure with a ruler on the paper design, from two corners, and find how far (in feet) the plant will be placed. With two 25' tape measures, you can find the exact spot in the garden where the plant belongs. Once all the plants have been placed accurately, you'll dig your planting holes with a hand trowel. The plants are in 4" pots, so dig your holes about 6" deep and wide, crumbling and loosening the soil. No need to add soil amendments as these plants love the clay soils of DFW. Water in each plant with 4 cups of water. If you're far from a water source, bring 10 gallons of water for 40 plants, or 20 gallons for 80 (3 or 6, 5-gallon buckets 80% full).
Taking the First Step
Finding three people to help you..... that's your first step. If you love the idea and can pitch in $70, ask three people to help you. Once you have a group of four, with a garden design in hand showing what it will look like, meet with your school's PTA president, and then present it to the school principle. Talk about the benefits of your school having a garden.
The great thing about these plants is you can dig many of them up and relocate them later. So maybe you start with a 400 square foot garden now, and in the future as you get more teachers and parents involved, you decide to expand it. Start small so that you can actually start now. A garden of any size is a tremendous step in the right direction. Your garden club can grow, as your plants grow. And you can help others start a garden at their school.
If 4000 people in DFW gave 10% of the time spent each year on Facebook (180 hours) and 10% of the money spent on coffee ($500), there'd be enough volunteer time and money to build school gardens for over 350,000 children in DFW. If we gave up Coffee and Facebook just 3 days a month, we could instead build a garden for every student in 700+ schools in Richardson, Arlington, Frisco, Plano, Denton, Dallas, and Fort Worth ISDs. Start small. Inspire others