Vertical Garden

Cherryhurst Vertical Garden 2025.
Children between ages 6-12 participate in after school and summer enrichment programs run by Houston Parks and Recreation. The Vertical Garden Program, a partnership between Friends of Cherryhurst Park and the Parks Department has been running for 10 years. The program was designed to teach children about where their food comes from and how to grow things in the garden. Thus flowers and edibles like carrots, beans, peas and cherry tomatoes and herbs are the mainstays due to the limited size of pots. The two large pots located on the front of the building are used for watermelons, pole beans and other plantings that do well in larger pots. Plantings are rotated to support natural nitrogen cycles. Only organic seeds, soils and fertilizer are used. As you can imagine, the children love tasting the fruits of their efforts.
Many of the children have been attending the program since they turned 6 and will often volunteer after they turn 12. The older children are quick to help the younger ones. Participant numbers during the School Year are about 40 and during the summer about 60. The Parks staff, Ms. Claudia and Mr. O have been great supporters of the program and are on hand to help during garden sessions.
Activities include:
Plant identification, leaves, flowers, fruit
Seeding
Transplanting
Weeding
Observations
Crafts (making pots from cardboard tubes, folding seeds into packets, making garden themed cards for special occasions)
General maintenance of the area around the garden
Garden games like bingo and Children’s Climate Fresk
Garden sessions usually last 60-90 minutes. The children are often divided up into teams for feeding, weeding, planting, sweeping, maintenance.
During the summer, due to the heat, we’ve been doing small group activities focused on maintenance, plant identification, sampling and seeding. Time outside is limited to 30 minutes.
The staff is willing to continue the program but would like to have support from the community.
I’m happy to talk with anyone who is interested in taking over the program. That person will have carte blanche to run it as he/she desires. I have found that the children love the gardening sessions, retain and share knowledge about gardening and are very proud when they can share seeds or stories from the garden.
I’m also attaching a copy of the 1st year report for reference.
Thanks,
Flora
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Flora Moon
Sustainability Matters