Garden Program

The garden at YES Charter Academy holds a central place in our curriculum. Every class takes its turn sowing, growing, and harvesting. Our students don’t only study plants in books. They learn the importance of healthy soil for human life by growing flowers, vegetables, and fruit.

The garden is our hands-on laboratory. With our California Grown Fresh Grant we installed a greenhouse, chicken coop, eight-foot fence, and an outdoor learning center.

We established the North Fork Harvest with Master Gardener Tena Brown as our program coordinator, and we teach our children the importance of growing their food and how to do it!
We serve homegrown vegetables with all our school lunches.

Other certified California master gardeners frequently offer lectures, demonstrations, and experiments for our students.

Students design trellises, learn to make compost, and study soil composition. They also plant and tend garden beds, and get to harvest in the spring term.

YES Charter Academy also obtained the assistance of a California Native Plants Society specialist in education and community gardens. With her guidance, we planted California native plants and look forward to a community lecture series.