Cleveland School Gardens

By Joel Mader

The Cleveland Public School's tract garden program was one of the most successful and innovative programs of the school system. The organization and beauty of the gardens attracted horticulture educators from all over the United States, South America, and as far away as Japan. From its humble beginnings in 1904 as a project to beautify vacant lots in Cleveland, it grew into an educational tool that taught thousands of children the respect for nature and its bounty. At the tract gardens' height, the amount of land under cultivation in the middle of the Cleveland urban landscape approached 100 acres. By 1970, there were 27 horticultural centers servicing all Cleveland schools. Centers were located next to schools, in housing estates, at fairgrounds, at a home for the aged, and on museum property. A few of the centers are now neighborhood gardens. The photographs in Cleveland School Gardens show that the Cleveland Public Schools knew the importance of being "green" 100 years before it was politically fashionable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781439625873

Joel Mader

Joel Mader is a retired English teacher who holds a master’s degree in English linguistics. He is the author of Cleveland School Gardens. He lives in Richfield, Ohio, with his wife, Jacqueline.

Book preview

University.

INTRODUCTION

For almost a quarter century, the Cleveland public school garden program was the most successful, innovative, and copied program in the United States. Horticultural educators came to Cleveland from New York to California—and as far away as Venezuela and Japan—to learn how to adapt the school garden concept for their cities. The pioneer program that began in 1904 as an idea to beautify vacant lots in the city bloomed into a multimillion-dollar horticultural program that touched every family of school-age children in Cleveland. The joy of gardening was taught from kindergarten to 12th grade. Each school in the system had a place set aside for garden activities. It could be just a small, fenced-in plot of dirt in the schoolyard, or it could be as large as a small gentleman’s farm of 7 acres with a garden classroom building and multiple greenhouses.

These larger plots were called tract gardens. Garden science classes were a part of the curriculum. The science teacher was the garden teacher, and she or he would conduct lessons in the classroom and extend the lesson to a hands-on project in the school garden. In the second half of the 20th century, a vocational horticultural program for older students was established. This program prepared students for work and college in the fields of horticulture, earth science, and environmental science. In addition to the elementary and senior high programs, the board of education offered a two-year post-high school horticulture technology program, adult programs for homeowners, and special courses for employees of horticultural businesses.

The tract gardens were the gems of the program and the outward proof of their success. The largest tract garden was located on the east side of Cleveland in the old Slovak-Hungarian neighborhood of Wood hill and Buckeye Roads. Harvey Rice tract garden broke 7 acres of land for planting. Benjamin Franklin had 5.5 acres cultivated and today serves as a community garden run by the Old Brooklyn Neighborhood Development Association. Miles Elementary School boasted a sunken memorial garden, an herb garden, a historical log cabin, and 3.2 acres of tract gardens.

Schoolchildren rented individual gardens for a small fee. The rental fee was a real bargain; it paid for the plot, seeds, plants, fertilizer, and tools used. The tract garden season started in early spring and continued through the fall harvest. The plots were 6 feet by 10 feet for third graders, and up to 10 feet by 30 feet for senior high school students. Everything concerning the gardens was standardized, yet each individual superintendent was given license to be creative in his or her approach to learning. There were regularly scheduled programs throughout the season, and tract garden classes were scheduled after school. Summer classes were held twice a week when groups of 20 to 40 children would join in an activity. During the summer, each gardener had to cultivate, weed, and fertilize his or her plot. If a child neglected his or her garden for two weeks by being absent without permission, the garden was given to another student on a waiting list.

In 1969, some 92,820 students took part in garden activities. The home gardens (called victory gardens during World Wars I and II) added another 21,000 plots. In 1975, the last year of available records, the total value of the vegetables produced was $700,779 (not counting the worth of thousands of flowers grown). This was when a dozen ears of corn sold for a dollar.

The home garden program was a large part of the Cleveland school gardens. For students who lived far from a tract garden, home gardens were encouraged. Home gardens were treated like mini-tract garden plots, and all the rules of the larger tract gardens applied to them. Thousands of seed packages were distributed every year to students for home gardens. The home gardener would follow a set pattern for their plot and be graded on the success of the garden by a summer garden teacher. Twice each summer, teachers would visit, assist, and evaluate the gardeners. This contact with a teacher helped form a priceless bond between the family and the school.

The garden administration and science teachers were of the highest caliber. Teachers like Herbert Meyer, Paul Young, Luther Karrer, Dr. Peter Wotowiec, and Dr. Edward Johnson set a standard of excellence in horticulture that educators throughout the nation strived to attain. To this day, teachers like Joanne Scudder and the teachers of Washington Park Horticultural Center labor to keep the dream of the original garden pioneers alive. The administrators guided the elementary teachers through the garden curriculum. They published articles, books, and workbooks on gardening. Paul Young’s Garden-Graphs, Practical Instructions in Gardening was an often-used textbook series on gardening. Because most of the upper elementary teachers had a limited background in plant science, the science classes were coordinated with a radio program presented by the board of education’s own WBOE radio station. All the materials used in the broadcast (teacher’s guides, seeds, and tools) were sent to the teacher beforehand. The students would follow and participate in the classroom lesson during the broadcast. This is probably the first use of broadcast radio–driven horticultural lessons for elementary students in the nation.

Each garden, large or small, had an open house, which parents would attend to view the progress of their child. These open houses featured parades, hot dog roasts, and games like scramble for peanuts and potato-bag races. Mini-awards assemblies would be held at each garden school, and the best vegetables and flowers were sent off to the annual all-schools awards assembly held in the fall. The annual horticultural assembly was held at the Higbee department store auditorium for years. From the 1960s through the 1970s, the awards were presented at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. The children received certificates, ribbons, plaques, and trophies for the years served in the garden, for