Highlighted School Garden Program

The Reemergence of the Palm Desert Charter Middle School Garden Program
Contributed by Jax Patterson, UCCE Master Gardener

Palm Desert Charter Middle School (PDCMS) has an amazing garden facility. The original grant for this site project was awarded around 2015 to educator and Master Gardener, Karen Wylie, by the California Women for Agriculture, Coachella Valley. With approximately 3,500 sq-ft of in-ground garden beds (including an odd trellis here and there), various sheds chock full of gardening equipment, a small shade structure with worktables, a greenhouse with running water, electricity, and a swamp cooler. All in need of TLC, but hey, they exist! It’s a veritable dream come true for a Master Gardener who wants to focus their energy on school and community gardening! And that would totally be me, Master Gardener Jax Patterson, class of 2021.

I recently relocated to the Coachella Valley, and, as such, adjusted my plans to become a Master Gardener in Riverside County as opposed to Los Angeles. I joined the Youth and School Garden Project early in my training in hopes of being able to volunteer at this site once COVID restrictions eased.

In Fall 2021, Brad Hardison, School and Youth Coordinator for the Desert, reached out to the new administration at PDCMS and began working with a new 7th grade science teacher, Ms. Maxwell. Freshly in charge of the Garden, Ms. Maxwell started an after-school club on Mondays which expanded to the occasional Thursday during the students’ lunch period.

At the end of January 2022, I became involved with the program; participating in garden activities with the students. In mid-March Brad asked me to be the site lead for the project. A successful Fall planting with plant start donations from the grow lab was winding down. Our first big challenge of Spring were the weeds. Common mallow (Malva neglecta) had taken hold throughout the site. I worked with the students on Mondays after school for several weeks clearing the beds as the mallow, nut grass, snapdragons, and morning glories were about to overtake the entire installation (and parts of the neighborhood).

We had a lot on our plates in April. I received permission from the administration to do some extra work to prepare the site for the new plants; but time wasn't on our side. The morning of Friday, April 8, I was met by the Administration team when I showed up to work in the garden. They spoke of bringing in a cleaning crew to clear cut the chin-high weeds, and I let them know we had volunteers assigned to assist with the 4-6 beds we had identified for planting the following Monday.

Unexpectedly, the weekend prior to planting day, the administration hired their landscaping team to clear the entire garden to my most humbled surprise. Younhee Choi, Brad Hardison, Jim Thompson, Linda Williams, and I were able to concentrate solely on getting the six beds ready for planting, as opposed to removing literally pounds of weed seed and other debris adjacent to our planting areas.

I invited my classmate, Master Gardener Vivian Yturralde, to assist me with site coordination, as by this point the Administration had become quite invested in what Master Gardeners had to offer. Brad dropped off two different sets of plant donations from the Grow Lab, and Vivian and I were able to “gamify” two separate planting events. Garden Club lunch meetings (which were initially poorly attended) became regular events since the students weren't just on weed and trash detail. We engendered camaraderie in our students through both competition as well as teamwork.

Vivian and I arranged to monitor the new seedlings and watering system over Spring break, so when the students returned the Garden had a host of strong new plants. The very next week, we began the fight for those same plants against the Club's newest member - an extremely brazen gopher that the students named "Ruler.” Ruler took out the vast majority of our squash plants; he seems to prefer the scallop squash and positively decimated those plants (my favorite, sorry to say).

Vivian and I were able to share treats with the students from our own gardens (picante salsa and peach/orange jam), and Vivian taught hand pollination of squash blossoms and buzz pollination (electric toothbrush) of tomato blossoms. We went over all the particulars of the flowers and how the processes differ between species. The students learned to identify male/female squash blossoms and even helped nature along with the buzz pollination technique on the tomatoes.

Our final meeting dates in May set the students out on their task of measuring all the garden beds to help plan for materials we needed for summer and upcoming season. As the heat rose and the season wound down, students were able to harvest zucchini; find and identify hornworms and "put them in timeout"; and even take home plants to put in their own gardens. We had several graduating 8th graders who will represent two different high schools in the area returning as mentors.

After the close of school for the summer, a solarization project was proposed and implemented to ensure the work everyone had done to keep the weeds down wasn’t wasted over the break. Prior to the landscapers coming to lay out the plastic per our instructions, Vivian and I removed the last of the viable produce from the site as there was no real shelter from the heat. We had over eight pounds of green tomatoes (they did not go to waste).

Master Gardener Christine Curtis taught me to always involve the principal to ensure success. We are so uniquely blessed with Principal Deborah Dolan. She formed the Panther Gardening Communication Team and appointed a parent foundation volunteer, Kristine Daly, to source grants applicable to our project. On August 23, we were notified by the Team at Kids Gardening that we were selected for our first grant of $500 to create a pollinator garden.

It is so extremely gratifying to see that once they witnessed the effort we were willing to put in to help clear the space, the administration became fully invested in revitalizing an environment that will be used to both educate and build community.

Please stay tuned for more awesomeness to come during our 2022-23 season at the Palm Desert Charter Middle School Garden. Feel free to connect with us if you’ve an interest in joining one of our project teams. This next season is going to be amazing!

Special thanks to the friends without whose assistance, guidance, love and support, none of this would have been accomplished. I simply could not have done this without you: Peggy Bakke, Carolyn Daniels, Marsha McNamara, Marcia Stone, Martha Tureen, and Vivian Yturralde.