In the Gardens
Youth Gardening
Both gardens are sites for service learning, youth classes, and school and youth groups garden activities. Over 1,000 youth come to the gardens annually, including the Kindergartners from Town Center Elem, who walk over to plant their adopted beds, observe the worm bin, journal reflections of garden experience, and use the garden as a science lab. To arrange for a visit, contact info@coppellcommunitygarden.org. Want to know more about school gardens? Click here.
Composting Education
One of the best ways to learn more about composting is to volunteer to work with the compost bins at the gardens. Every Saturday morning 6-10 compost bins are turned and new piles are built from the chopped materials recycled at the gardens. Self-guided signage on the art of making compost are posted at Helping Hands Garden. Benefits of using compost made at the community gardens is evident in the overall health of the soil, plants, and produce at the gardens. Click here to view video of composting at the community gardens.
Texas SmartScape Demonstration Gardens
The community gardens are filled with drought tolerant and native plants demonstrating what they would look like in your own landscape. Gardeners who like to work with perennial gardens can adopt these beds as they also have an important function at the garden attracting beneficial insects and bees. For a plant data base and more information on Texas SmartScape, click here.
Rain Harvesting
Helping Hands Garden has a fifty-five gallon rain barrel that catches the rain water from the shed roof. This mini set-up will demonstrate to a homeowner what they can install to harvest rainfall. The rainwater is used to water seedlings and foliar feeding of the plants.
Raised Bed Vegetable Gardening
The community gardens’ raised beds allow for a half acre of planting space. Since all the beds are adopted by volunteers, there is a great variety of fruits, vegetables, and herbs that are grown throughout the gardens. Many of the gardeners are saving seed, planting heirlooms, and raising culturally diverse produce that is not normally seen at grocery stores. REMEMBER that the produce grown is donated to the food pantry and is ONLY harvested by the adopted plot gardener.
