Since then, she has begun to develop a garden network in her district, focusing on engaging Title I schools. Moberg eventually changed districts, and it wasn’t until 2018 that she once again established a school garden. This was the beginning of her interest in and advocacy for school gardens.

Still, Moberg always had about 50 kids show up for gardening club. The district felt so bad, it built a new garden however, she says the soil was never as good as that original garden. The following year, Moberg returned to discover that during renovations of the school building, the garden had been destroyed.

The area was often used as an outdoor classroom, but the garden club was an after school club. That first year, they planted an in-ground garden bordered by straw bales and discovered that they had very fertile soil and many enthusiastic students. They thought a garden would be perfect, because, at the time, there was still a lot of farming and ranching mixed in with the suburbs, and the school was surrounded by watermelon fields, corn fields and citrus farms. The team had heard about the Western Growers Foundation grants for school gardens and decided to apply.

In 2008, Lisa Moberg, now an NBCT and once a blogger for Stories from School Arizona, was teaching on a third grade team in a West Valley Title I school.

Garden story in english