Organic garden patch - Angels in Fallbrook

The first local school garden began in 1994, when Rocky Peak (“the Peak”) began to sponsor a volunteer project at Ivy High School. An organic garden was started as an after-school project, with six raised beds and several fruit trees.

Today, there are 98 citrus trees, a greenhouse and 30 beds full of sprouting produce. All of it is organic, and it has always been so. Toxic chemicals have not been used on the entire school campus for more than a dozen years. How great is that?

We are proud of the program Ivy High has built, as the gardens are now very much a science class for the students and a springboard for older students to mentor young students across the school district.

In addition to having a strong base at Ivy School, the Fallbrook Schools Organic Garden Project has spread its wings into Fallbrook Street Elementary, Live Oak Elementary, Potter Junior High and the district headquarters over yonder by Iowa Street.

It’s great for the youth of Fallbrook, who gain the privilege to participate in the art and science of gardening through building beds, planting seeds, caring for plants, harvesting produce and, most importantly, eating the harvest! Pick a tangerine off the tree and eat it, we say! Skip the vending machines.

This organic garden project affiliates with the Mission Resource Conservation District and the Fallbrook Land Conservancy in an effort to restore native plants to Fallbrook. This aspect of the project provides opportunities to students to participate in community service and to enhance their education through growing and planting native plants.

Several teachers deserve recognition for the love, care and energy they have put into school gardening. To us, they are garden angels.

Sheri Ryan of Ivy High School has worked very hard for many years instructing teenagers on the finer points of organic gardening. Sheri tends to more than 90 citrus trees, 30 beds, a greenhouse and more than a dozen teenagers all at once! Many thanks go to Sheri.

Carmen Donez of Fallbrook Street Elementary teaches first- and second-graders organic gardening every Friday. For more than eight years now, Carmen, through her own willpower and with the aid of other teachers and volunteers, has been passionately creating a garden space that cannot help but catch the attention of even the weariest of eyes.

Connie Follstad teaches gardening to her elementary students at Live Oak Elementary, having started her own garden program long before we began to work with her. We recently finished adding an irrigation system for Connie, through which the garden beds now get an easy drink of water. We are most thankful for Connie’s efforts.

Paulene Williams of Potter Junior High has her hands full with a group of shiny special education students and a garden area full of sprouting vegetables. It is our great privilege and honor to be helping Paulene and the bright stars she pours her love into.

Sally Baker Opps, who teaches physical education to handicapped students in all of Fallbrook’s schools, has been of great help to the organic garden project. Sally has advised on handicap access to all the gardens in the schools and has been fundamental in aiding the expansion of the project through the school system. Much is owed to Sally for her help.

Our dream sees Fallbrook as a vital ecological village where students choose tangerines and carrots over vending machine candy. With enough input, we can help students make healthier decisions as they become young adults. All of the school garden programs bear such evidence.