"Gardening + Makerspaces = Tasty Combination"

November 24, 2023

"Gardening + Makerspaces = Tasty Combination"

1st Makerspace is located in Indiana; they partnered with Tower Garden to start an "education bundle" implementing gardening in their makerspace. 1st Makerspace has a vertical tower garden, a "1MS Tower Garden Flex Growing System," which comes with the materials necessary and educational sessions so students of all ages can learn about the science of growing plants. This link, GARDEN, from the 1st makerspace introduces the Tower Garden system.

Tower Garden is a vertical aeroponic garden system that allows you to grow your own greens, herbs, flowers, fruits, and vegetables indoors. They offer many different growing systems that you can use at home, in your community, or in a school. The Tower Garden YouTube page offers many videos on starting seeds, cleaning your growing system, Assembly, and harvesting.

"A makerspace education turns students into farmers, gardeners, and cooks."

A makerspace is a space where students can explore, experiment, and take risks and a garden and food have done that for a very long time. Kids love being involved in growing their own food. Makerspaces should have a pantry with other ingredients to encourage students to prepare a meal with their crops from the garden and the ingredients in the pantry. Children enjoy helping at home cooking and baking and they learn so much from from helping in the kitchen. Imagine how exciting it would be for students and how much they could learn from growing their own food, harvesting their crops, and making a something they can eat from vegetables they grew from seed.

Working in an elementary school library I see students are more engaged in hands-on activities than in traditional learning. Bring up planting seeds and growing vegetables; the students are ALL on board cheering YEAH!! The students in all grades learn about the science of growing food and will plant seeds in their classrooms and in the library. The seedlings that grow get transplanted in the school garden. One of the schools in the district uses what they have grown to cook something. This past fall they made pizza. They used the tomatoes and herbs from their garden to make the pizza sauce and used the vegetables for the toppings.

Gardening can be rewarding and challenging, with so much to learn. You truly learn from what went wrong from one growing season and find a way to improve for the next. You can learn the science behind growing food but also learn about the process it takes to have bountiful garden. Living in Connecticut, the weather can be interesting, to say the least. We have a short growing season, and sometimes we can get a surprise cold blast in May. Every year is different and what I like to call trial and error, I apply what I learned from the previous growing season to the current growing season and most times succeed and sometimes I fail. You never know how a season is going to turn out, and a lot of times, a mistake can accidentally turn into a success. Since the growing season in Connecticut is short, it can be hard to know when to start your seeds and when to plant your seedlings outside. Every growing season is different. I have lost crops from an unexpected frost, thunderstorms with insane winds, and even hurricanes where my garden plot floods. I usually start my seedings inside; depending on the seeds, I start as early as January. Frost-tolerant crops can be started early and transplanted outside in February/March. I will get a plastic storage container and cover the seedlings as a greenhouse. For any vegetable, herb, or flower that isn't frost tolerant, I try to wait until early June to transplant them.

Windsor Public Library has an outdoor community garden at the Wilson branch and a hydroponic garden at the main branch. Wilson branch also has a greenhouse that many students from Loomis Chaffee School use. Nature Backpacks of different themes are also offered at the Wilson branch to borrow with books, activities, and tools for patrons of all ages.

Many libraries in the state have a seed library where patrons can take up to five packets of seeds for their garden. At the end of the season, they can harvest their seed pods and donate them back to the library.

A makerspace a community space; with no experienence or master gardener, you are ALWAYS learning, and seeds are an ideal material for a makerspace. Gardening can be tricky, but the end result is rewarding and worth it.