Summer Garden Update 2020 – The Edible Schoolyard New Orleans

This summer, while schools were closed and the city was sheltering-in-place, ESYNOLA gardens were still growing strong. With the expertise of our garden staff, and the help and generosity of volunteers, neighbors, and members of the school communities, our gardens were weeded, watered, and cared for during the strenuous summer months.

Here are some images and updates from school gardens across the FirstLine network in late summer, 2020:

Samuel J. Green Charter School

The chicken coop built by Green 6th graders last year is finished, and ready for chickens. They should arrive shortly after the students do.

Handwashing stations are a welcome addition to the Green garden to help keep garden classes safe.

This sign is such a good reminder to support our local farmers and producers.

Langston Hughes Academy

The new butterfly meadow at LHA is designed to be a wild, self-seeding landscape. The different species of milkweeds are flourishing!

A large crop of sweet potatoes are anticipated at LHA. Look at those vines (the leaves are edible too!).

The bananas are producing, and the spiders are smiling.

Arthur Ashe Charter School

Site gardener and greenhouse manager Mallory Naquin has begun planting seeds for the cool-weather growing season.

A student who was in the garden a few weeks ago noticed that Ashe’s sweet potatoes are growing in a different part of the garden than they were last fall. "Oh, cool,” he commented to the site gardener, “we're practicing crop rotation." Spot on!

Beautiful and prolific Pride of Barbados looks great this time of year.

Phillis Wheatley Community School

A new garden sign with instructions for how to use a trowel safely.

One of students’ favorite crops, Roselle Hibiscus, grows at every ESYNOLA garden. The calyxes are starting to develop in the Wheatley garden.

Wheatley’s first harvest table of the year yielded some hibiscus lemongrass tea, okra, papayas, and watermelons.

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