School Gardens

TL;DR: Getting your hands dirty is part of gardening. Getting hands clean afterwards is our business. Our hand washing stations are great for school gardens, community gardens, church gardens, and demonstration gardens.

I am the son of an educator. My mother taught kindergarten and first grade. During her long career at Tucson's Whitmore Elementary she built three gardens. The first was in front of a tin-roofed kindergarten building way out in the corner of the playground. It must have been at least one hundred yards from the main school and her students would call out, "We've got company!" any time they saw someone walking across the field.

Her little corner was perfect for a school garden and, with the help of her students and their parents, she built one. I remember picking up a truck load of horse manure from a farm on the Pantano river and delivering the rich contents back to the school. Later that year, and to everyone's surprise, the garden spontaneously sprouted watermelon vines in every direction! It turns out that horses love watermelon and the seeds go right through them entirely intact!

At some point my mom moved her classroom back to the main building and she and her teaching partners made another garden in the school's courtyard. When that one had to be moved she built a third out where the "new" parking lot is today. Each time she started over she'd mark off an area, get another load of manure, and enlist parents, teachers, and students to dig in.

During the school year her class would be out at the garden every day tilling, planting, weeding, or harvesting as the season demanded. Gardening is dirty work, of course, so she had a hose and five gallon bucket where they'd rinse off most of the dirt before heading inside to wash up with soap and water at the sink.

I remember being amazed at how productive a small garden could be. It was a delight to see the kids getting excited about the literal fruits of their labor growing before their eyes. My mom is a terrific educator, and those gardens were an integral part of being in Mrs. Jarrett's class.

I became a grandpa this year and so my wife and I started a new vegetable garden. We planted tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, and, of course, watermelons, with our grand daughter.

If you've got a school garden and are still using a hose and bucket to wash up, we can help. Our outdoor handwashing station is perfect for children and adults. Six or more people can use it at a time and it makes washing up fast and efficient. You can even run the drain water right back into your garden (not on root crops like carrots, though!).

Our new design is proudly built in the USA (right here in Tucson) from ABS plastic and stainless steel. It will last outdoors for years and years.

Getting dirty while gardening is part of the fun, and we can help make sure your students go back to class with clean and safe hands.

If you're a teacher, school administrator, or parent of a student with a school garden I hope you will get in touch to see how an outdoor handwashing station can work for you.