A black chalkboard sign points to carrots and lettuce in a lush school garden. Kids gather around a garden bed in the background.

School gardens are incredible places. They provide a place for hands-on learning. They offer a front-row seat to important lessons about food, farming, and the natural world. And they can be sources of produce, herbs, or flowers to nourish communities. 

Cultivating school gardens is a core element of how FoodCorps works with schools. In the best cases, those gardens continue to flourish—with help from families and communities—even after our partnership has ended. 

School Gardens to Inspire You This Spring

FoodCorps members help cultivate hundreds of school gardens each year. School gardens come in all shapes, sizes, and seasons, and we celebrate them all for the ways they support kids and schools. 

April is National Garden Month, as great a time as ever to learn about the benefits of school gardens. If you’re looking for inspiration for your own school garden, here are just a few we love. 

On a landscape of brown rocks and grass, three neat garden beds with plenty of green plants blooming within. In the background is a wide expanse of grass, a blue sky, and a waist-high fence sectioning off the garden.

At McEvans Elementary in Shaw, Mississippi, neatly arranged garden beds invite students to walk around and examine plants and insects from different angles. Photo by Steve Ettinger. 

On a white fence, black painted text reads "Every child is a different kind of flower. All together they make a beautiful garden." Colorful butterflies made with painted handprints dot the fence, and there's a green wheelbarrow and a rack of school garden tools in the foreground.

Students helped bring this fence to life with painted handprint butterflies in the garden space at Cedarville Elementary in Cedarville, Arkansas. Photo by Rochelle Li.

A smiling FoodCorps member with short dark hair, jeans, and an apron holds a green watering can in a large school garden. The ground is covered in light mulch, there are several garden beds with plants overflowing out of them, and the sky is a bright blue.

Corps member Katie Kamimoto gives a tour of Mar Vista Elementary’s garden on a sunny day in Oxnard, California. Photo by Rochelle Li.

A green painted sign reads "garden agreements" and shows four children's drawings illustrating kindness and respect for the garden. A whiteboard and some picnic tables are seen in the background.

A sign acknowledging collective garden agreements welcomes kids at KairosPDX in Portland, Oregon. Photo by Kayo Okada. 

A large school garden consisting of an enclosed greenhouse, several raised beds, a cemented patio area, and a fenced-in area for crops.

There are all kinds of spaces to learn in this school garden at Bell Academy in Boyle, Mississippi, from a greenhouse to raised beds to a patio area. Photo by Dr. Todd Davis.

A FoodCorps member with dark curly hair kneels and smiles in front of a small garden bed. Beside them is a sign that says "FoodCorps Serves Here," and behind them are more raised beds and blooming plants.

In the garden at Avon Avenue Elementary in Newark, New Jersey, corps member Bridgette Byrd poses after leading students through a lesson about how garlic grows. Photo by Rochelle Li.

A close-up of a wooden painted sign reading "Welcome" in several languages. The background is a lush scene of crops and vegetables, including a visible "tomatoes" sign.

Colorful signage welcomes visitors to the school garden at Talbot Community School in Portland, Maine, where FoodCorps members and students harvest potatoes and other crops. Photo by Rochelle Li.

A close-up of an insect on a bright pink flower in a pollinator garden.

The pollinator garden at Elmdale Elementary in Springdale, Arkansas, welcomes a tiny winged visitor, who helps the flowers grow and thrive. Photo by Julia Nall.

Three kids peering into a canvas bag where a plant is just sprouting. Only their faces are visible, and the middle child is beaming while the other two look a little more cautious.

Who says school gardens have to be outdoors? In Farmington, New Mexico, corps member Jojo Reed led students through a tour of Esperanza Elementary’s indoor garden, where new sprouts are blooming with the help of extra light and water. Photo by Rochelle Li.

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Related read: What Makes a Great School Garden? | “School gardens have been around for at least a century, according to the USDA. And they can blossom in all kinds of places: in both cold and warm environments, and in urban, suburban, and rural communities. The crucial ingredient is a group of passionate people—students, teachers, families, and community members—invested in the garden’s success and sustainability.”