School gardens work, if teachers get help

This month, WWF France and Eval-Lab published the results of a randomised study of school gardens on a scale its authors say has never been seen before: 89 primary schools, 184 teachers and more than 3,500 pupils across France. I have been waiting for this one. It says what I see on farms every season: a garden only works when someone helps the people looking after it.

A garden is not enough

Plenty of schools already have a garden. Before the study, a survey of 500 of them found that most teachers rarely use it, and that 90 percent have had no training for it. The obstacles will sound familiar to any grower who has trained a crew: managing a big group outside, the idea that the garden is only useful at the end of the school year, the feeling that it is a hobby rather than a lesson, and the pressure to grow, harvest and succeed.

What changed with a little help

WWF France's École jardinière programme gives teachers ready-to-use activities, no training required. For the study, half of the schools, drawn by lot, received seventeen of them by mail during the 2024-2025 school year, seeds included. Those teachers spent 50 percent more time on garden lessons, from 12 to 18 hours a year. The children's connection to nature, their ecological sensitivity and their pro-environmental skills all improved, without raising eco-anxiety overall, and the gains were largest in priority-education schools, where children live furthest from nature.

The study is honest about the rest: it found no effect on the children's well-being at school, and more discipline problems during outdoor activities. Taking thirty children outside is a skill of its own, and teachers need support for that too.

Cheap, and worth it

A school garden does not cost much. The study puts it at about €4,000 to set up, under €30 per pupil in a school of 150; the mailed activities cost €42 per class; and each euro invested returns an estimated €3.35 to the community. For a town, that is one of the best investments in the schoolyard.

Where market gardeners come in

The study asks schools to open the garden to the community: associations, municipal gardeners, work days, intergenerational workshops. Some towns already do it. In Lunel, in the south of France, the town is equipping its thirteen schools with vegetable beds set on the natural ground, and the city's greenhouse manager helps the teachers. A market gardener down the road can be one of those people: an afternoon in the spring, a tray of transplants, a visit to the farm. The children remember it.

A garden that follows the school year

A school garden has to produce while the children are there, and in a northern climate much of the summer harvest comes when the school is closed. So choose crops for the school calendar. Radishes are made for this: we seed them for spring, late summer and fall harvests, and avoid midsummer. Salad greens work the same way. Write the plan before the summer break, with the beds and a short list of tasks for each week, so the class comes back in September to something growing and always knows what the garden needs. A planning tool like Heirloom can hold that plan, with a season that starts in September, like the school year.

Why it touches me

I love France for this. People there still work the land, the culture of small farms, la paysannerie, is still alive, and good food is part of everyday life. A child who has sown a carrot and pulled it out of the ground never looks at a vegetable the same way again. Some of these children will be tomorrow's market gardeners. Many more will be their customers at the market. If we want to multiply the number of farms, this is where it begins.

-JM