By Caitlin Donohue
Look how stoked these Berkeley kids are on their badass school garden program- now where is SF’s?
As San Francisco public schools struggle to keep their salad bars stocked with a few local and organic options, Berkeley kids are benefiting from their town’s legendary reputation for sustainable grubbing.
Alice Waters, doyenne of natural food living and Californian cuisine, adopted Martin Luther King, Jr. middle school all the way back in 1994 and since then has helped to implement a school garden program that I dare say puts a lot of commercial produce growing operations to shame.
The Edible Schoolyard stands on an acre of ground adjacent to King school and plays host to such a variety of organic food that it could supply… well, an Alice Waters’ restaurant for one thing. They’ve got a cavalcade of trees bearing everything from olives to apples, a tea garden, oyster, shiitake and portabello mushrooms, amaranth, quinoa, egg laying fowl, berries and veggies of all stripes. They also have a cider press, a nifty composting system and even a rainwater catchment program set up that saves 200 gallons of water per inch of rain.
Students get the chance to learn all about creating a sustainable food system through a three year schedule of classes that teaches them everything from composting to cooking. The garden also offers community classes on similar subjects (next up: backyard mushroom cultivation!)
Restaurantuer Alice Waters keeps Berkeley’s King middle school kids up on their quinoa fix