By Laura & Martin Teague
Driftwood Elementary School Garden – 2025 Progress
As background, in 2024, Master Gardener volunteer, Ann Schmierer, provided the bulk of the MG support for the Driftwood Elementary School Garden: weeding, watering, maintaining watering systems, planting, etc. My goal (Martin’s) for 2025 was to relieve some of the workload that Ann had shouldered, and to get more MGs involved in the Garden.
Things started with a bang at the Garden in 2025; Donna, the Driftwood School Garden Coordinator, had organized a Volunteer Garden Day event for Jan 20th. There were well over a dozen volunteers present: teachers, students, parents, people from the neighborhood and many MGs.
For the next six weeks Jen Nelson, with Donna’s help, worked with the kids in the garden and started a variety of seeds in the greenhouse. During that timeframe, we met to map out how the MGs could assist in the garden.
The MG volunteers started in earnest on Friday, March 21st, planting kale, cilantro, spinach, celery and chard in the garden’s greenhouse.
Since then, we’ve had great help from the MGs! In particular, Robin, Angi, Daisy and I have assisted Jen and Donna with the garden. And Ann has provided valuable insight when we have run into problems, such as when some seed starts failed; Ann suggested that a possible issue was that we had planted them before it was warm enough for germination.
By May and June, the garden beds were full of veggies and fruits and flowers! So much so that the school cafeteria began using the lettuce, radishes and nasturtium flowers in school lunches.
Now that school is out for the summer, I’ve updated the Friday Driftwood School Garden Team-Up event to embed a link to DW Garden Summer Sign-Up. Note also that since school is out, MGs are free to help whenever they have time; there’s always watering, weeding, and planting to be done!
Photo credit Martin Teague
