The School Strawberry Garden Project

Welcome to the Schoolyard Strawberry Project

2020-08-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Schoolyard Strawberry Project!
Growing a strawberry garden at your school provides students with a hands-on space to explore the life cycle of a plant and an understanding of cultivating food. Gardens can foster life skills like critical-thinking, problem solving, responsibility, communication and positive self-esteem!

Please explore ideas on how to get your strawberry garden started. Click on the links to the right for a publication on how to grow strawberries in an annual production system. Browse a few lessons by expert teachers for possibilities of what to learn from the garden.

A Space for a Strawberry Garden

2010-09-03T13:33:00.001-07:00

Purpose:
Students will determine what plants need to grow and apply these ideas in finding a space for the garden.

Duration:
Three 20 minute walks in August or September when students come back to school for a morning, mid day and afternoon walk around the schoolyard. Also, one hour in classroom talking about daylength and sun, one of the things that plants need to grow.

North Carolina Science Competencies:
Coming soon

Materials:
Notebooks, watch or clock. Three maps of schoolyard, one for the morning walk, one for the mid day walk and one for the late afternoon walk.

Focus Questions:
What do plants need to grow?
How can we find the best site for strawberries to grow?

Digging In:
Ask the students what plants need in order to grow. They should respond, water, sun, space, air (carbon dioxide and oxygen) and nutrients. Tell the students strawberries need a space that is sunny the entire day, at least 6-8 hours. Have them consider their schoolyard and think of possible spaces they could place the strawberry garden.

Have the students walk around the schoolyard and record the conditions in 2-3 locations. Have the students evaluate the site for its suitability for growing strawberries. Is there enough sun? A source for potable water? Does a tree shade a spot in the afternoon? Will the soil be suitable? Have the students compare the locations at different times of day and determine which space will work to build the strawberry garden. If a site is limiting, ask them what they can do to make it appropriate for strawberries. Can they build a raised bed or grow them in containers? Can they install a rain barrel to provide water. Have the students determine an appropriate site and ask school administrators for approval. Install the strawberry bed!

Montly Plant Monitoring

2010-09-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

Purpose:

Students will continually observe the growth of strawberries throughout the school year.

Duration:

You will need to set aside about 1 hour each month for this lesson.

North Carolina Science Competencies:

Coming Soon

Materials:

Diagram of plant parts
Handout for recording measurements (need handout)
Plant in a one gallon pot
1-2 large buckets of water
Ruler
Scale

Background Information:
Plants, like people grow. Consider using the analogy of children going to the doctor to get an annual wellness check-up. At the check-up, the child is weighed and their height is measured. The same is done for the plants on a monthly basis.

Focus Questions:

What are the parts of the strawberry plant?
Do you think each part will grow? Which part will grow the most?

Scratching the Surface:

Be sure to have a potted strawberry plant for each month of the school year. Encourage the children to estimate how big the plants will grow throughout the school year. Compare the strawberry plant size from planting to how big they might be in the spring.

Digging In:

At planting time, put 6 extra plants into 1 gallon pots of soil. The soil should preferably be potting soil from a local box store. It is easier to wash off the soil from the roots. (Picture).
Put a stake in each pot with the month. So there is an October plant, a November plant, a December plant etc. Picture.
Water and take care of plant the same way as you do the bed of plants.
In October, bring the October plant into the classroom and do the data collection.
Talk about the plant parts, leaves, roots and crown. (Picture).
Measure the plant, from bottom of roots to tip of longest leaf. Weigh the plant. Record data. Put plant into envelope, mark it with the date and keep for comparison later in the year.

Parts of a Strawberry Plant

2010-09-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

Purpose:

Students will learn the different parts of a strawberry plant and the function of each plant part.

Duration:

You will need about 1 hour for this lesson before you plant your garden.

North Carolina Science Competencies:

coming soon

Materials:

Diagram of plant parts (click on the picture)
A plant or two that you have not set in the ground

Focus Questions:

What are the parts of the strawberry plant? (Roots, crown, leaves, flowers and fruit).
What is the role of each of the plant parts?

Digging In:

Before you set the plants in the ground, dissect one plant into three parts, roots, crown and leaves.
Talk about the function of roots (water and nutrient absorbtion)
Talk about the function of leaves (photosynthesis, making food for the plant)
What is a crown and what does it do? (it is a stem and fruit will eventually emerge from this part of the plant)
The plant can be dissected into roots, leaves and crown each month and each part can be weighed and measured (see monthly plant monitoring lesson).

New Questions

Where are the flowers and when do they form and emerge from the plant?

Lessons & Activities

2010-08-17T12:22:00.000-07:00

If you have been growing a strawberry garden and have lessons you would like to contribute, please use this template (or parts of the template that make sense to you) and then email them to Liz Driscoll. The lessons will be posted as another tool for other teachers, crediting you as author. We are trying to build a collection of lessons to make it easier for teachers to educate from the garden. Thanks!

To get started growing your strawberry garden begin here:

Try propagating your own strawberry plugs

The Tip Off

Learn more about strawberry growth and development

Contact Us

2010-08-17T12:02:00.001-07:00

For questions about growing strawberries at your school contact:

Gina Fernandez

Professor and Small Fruit Specialist

NC State University / NC Cooperative Extension

170 Kilgore Hall, Box 7609 / Raleigh, NC 27695

Office: 919.513.7416 / gina_fernandez@ncsu.edu

Liz Driscoll
4-H Youth Specialist, Crops, Horticulture and Soils
NC State University / NC Cooperative Extension
218 Kilgore Hall, Box 7609
Raleigh, NC 27695-7609
919.513.7346 / liz_driscoll@ncsu.edu

About

2010-08-17T12:01:00.000-07:00

This project is a collaboration between NC State University Cooperative Extension, The North Carolina Strawberry Association, Swift Creek Elementary and NC Ag in the Classroom.

2010-08-17T11:42:00.001-07:00

testing testings

Strawberry Tips

2010-08-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

Tip Off: Growing Strawberry Tips in the Classroom

Materials:

strawberry tips
scale that measures small weights or mass (grams)
soil
spray bottle of water
container to hold planted tips and soil
gallon sized bag that will hold the soil container
optional: “clams” to protect soil container (A clam is that thing that you buy the strawberry fruit in.)
science journal for each child
teacher journal (Or a large tablet.)

Background Information

In the southeastern United States, most strawberries are grown as an annual crop. Strawberries produced in a northern climate are typically grown as perennials. As an annual crop in the southeast, strawberries must be planted each year. Strawberries produce runners, which are stems that grow horizontally, and as they spread, new plantlets, or daughter plants, will form from each main plant, or mother plant. The plantlets or daughter plants are used to start a new strawberry planting each fall. The daughter plants are cut from the mother plant and now called tips, rooted and then put into the garden or field. This method of starting new strawberry plants in this way is called vegetative propagation.

North Carolina strawberry farmer’s have a couple of options to consider when planting their strawberries every fall. Using the daughter plant cuttings from the mother plant are called “plugs.” Plugs are more expensive to produce but can be planted with farm machinery and transplant well into the field with limited plant death. “Fresh dug” plants are rooted strawberry plants that are dug from the field and transplanted back into the field in a different location. This methods requires a lot of farm labor and greater management to ensure transplant success, but are less expensive to produce than plugs. Some farmers plant unrooted strawberries directly into the ground. Read more here.

Show students a picture or have a live strawberry plant and ask them to name any parts they might know. Compare what the students are doing with what the farmers are doing. Share with the students that farmers are gathering “tips” or “daughter plants” and preparing for them to grow. Explain that the farmer’s and the students will be vegetatively propagating the tips or starting a new plant from an existing plant. The farmer’s strawberries are not in the fields yet, and neither will the students’. Pick one tip and have the students carefully study it. Encourage them describe what they see using attribute words (color, size, number).

Have the students date their science journal page. Draw a diagram of the tip in the science journal. Be sure to label the number of leaves. (Someone may notice there are no roots on these tips.) Describe how to set the scale, using a plate to put the tip on and make it balance out to zero before measuring. Place one tip on the plate. Have several students come up to read the measurement. Record the measurement on the journal page. Fill the soil containers with moist peat-based potting soil. Have one student make a hole in the soil with his finger. Place the bottom of the tip in the hole and gently tap the soil around the bottom. Put a small marker near the tip that the student drew and weighed. Repeat with all of the tips. Make sure the tips are well watered with water from the spray bottle.

Record the process in the science journals. Place the soil containers in the clams and then into the bag.

Place the tips in a sunny window or under grow lights. It is important that the tips stay very moist. Provide a high humidity environment by misting water gently on the tips 1-2x, 3 to 4 times a day. The soil should never be dry. Condensation on the bag is a good sign. Over the next few days watch the plants for deterioration. Tips dry out and perish very easily, be sure to keep the humidity high in the growing system.

Each day have a “tip observer” report to the class on any changes in the tips. Students may note root growth, new leaves, symptoms of disease or environmental stress in the plants. When the tips are ready to plant, students should weigh them again. Compare their initial weight to the final weight

Digging Deeper: Growing Strawberries from Seeds

While strawberries are commercially grown by taking tips from other plants, they can also be started from seeds. Seed grown strawberries are genetically different from their parents and may have interesting characteristics. Strawberries are unusual because they have their seeds on the outside of the fruit. To extract the seeds for planting, put 4-6 berries in a blender and fill with water. Blender just enough to separate the seeds and fruit pulp. The unripe seeds will float to the top and are not good for planting – strain these off. The good seeds will settle to the bottom. Pour off the liquid and pulp and collect the seeds through through a strainer. Rinse with water and then dry on a paper towel. Once the seeds have dried, scrape them off and sprinkle into a pot filled with moistened potting media. Lightly cover the seeds with soil (1/8” deep) and mist water over top. Place in a warm location and wait for germination to occur anywhere from 2-8 weeks. Once the seedlings are large enough, gently transplant by loosening the soil and pulling the plants away by the leaves. Poke a small hole in another pot and tuck the seedling in with soil.

Questions to think about:

How are the tips different from other plants you have planted?

Why do you think it is so important to keep the tips moist all the time?

Tips on tips:

The roots on the tips should begin to sprout in quite a short time. The tips need so much water because they are losing water through the leaves. Plants dry out quickly, so be sure to keep the humidity high. If you can't plant the tips right away, store them in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Life Skill Questions for students:

Do you agree on what observations are being made?

Why is it important that we record data?

How does communicating your findings help you understand?

What do you think about sharing responsibility for accomplishing our project?