A Co-op Garden: Where to Put It, Who Waters It and What Each Age Can Do

Start a co-op garden small, at the place you meet every week. A bed or two is enough, with the owner's permission and a water tap close by. If you don't know the history of the ground, have the soil tested. Put watering on the family schedule, one family a week, with a page of written instructions. Then give each age its own work: the youngest water and dig beside a parent, grades 1 to 3 sow and pick, and older children take on compost and planning.

For gardening with your own child at home, age by age, see Waldorf gardening with children. That covers what to grow, which tools to buy and how to keep children safe around plants. This piece is about a garden shared by several families, on a site that isn't anyone's back yard.

Why a garden suits a Waldorf-inspired co-op

A garden gives the children real work to do together, and it gives the co-op morning a thread that runs from week to week. The children plant beans in April and find them climbing in May.

WECAN is the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America. It writes that for young children "we need look no further than the tasks of the home: cooking, baking, gardening, laundry, cleaning, and so on." Young children learn by imitation, it says, and the adult's own pleasure in the work passes on to them. A co-op garden is a good place for that: a parent kneeling at the bed, three small children kneeling beside her.

Some Waldorf-inspired co-ops make it a regular part of the morning. The Coastal Waldorf co-op lists garden tending among its daily activities, alongside morning circle, main lesson blocks and handwork.

Where should the co-op garden go?

At the place you meet, so the children see it every week. A garden at one family's house that the co-op visits twice a term tends to become that family's garden.

What you need:

• Permission. Ask the church, hall or host family before you dig anything. Agree where the beds go, whether they can stay over the summer, and what happens to them if the co-op moves. Write the answer down.
• Water within reach of a hose. A garden that needs carried water is a garden that dries out.
• Sun. Vegetables grow best in a sunny spot. Watch it through a co-op morning before you choose.
• Beds the children can reach without climbing in. Keep them narrow enough that a child can reach the middle from either side.

If you rent a hall with no ground at all, big pots by the door still work. So do a few beds at a community garden near your venue. Co-op meeting places covers choosing a site with outdoor space.

Test the soil first

Before you grow food on ground with an unknown past, test it. The University of Maryland Extension says "all vegetable garden soils should be tested for lead," and advises against a vegetable garden "next to a busy road or a home built prior to 1940 with a painted wooden exterior." Church and hall grounds often sit beside both.

Where soil is moderately affected, the same extension suggests raised beds. Fill them with clean topsoil and compost "to at least an 8-inch depth." It also advises frequent hand washing for young children, and washing all vegetables and peeling root crops before they're eaten. Your state's cooperative extension service can tell you how to send a sample and read the result.

Who waters between sessions?

This is where most shared gardens struggle. A co-op meets once a week, and a bed of seedlings in June can't wait six days.

School gardens face the same problem every summer, and their answer suits a co-op well. Life Lab suggests having families "sign up to 'adopt' the garden for a week or two," with simple directions on where to water and weed, and encouragement to pick what's ready. KidsGardening suggests naming one volunteer as overall coordinator, with a written schedule and reminders.

So:

1. Add a garden job to your family schedule, next to snack and circle. One family a week, or two families splitting it. Homeschool co-op parent jobs shows how the jobs fit together.
2. Name one garden coordinator for the year, who keeps the schedule and finds a swap when a family is away.
3. Write one page of instructions and keep it in a tin by the tap. Say where the hose is, which beds to water and what's ready to pick. Life Lab also suggests a short video.
4. Let the watering family pick what's ripe and take it home. It's the thank-you.

Two things reduce the watering itself. KidsGardening says drip irrigation can run on an inexpensive timer, and that a layer of organic mulch cuts weeds and holds moisture in the soil. Life Lab suggests 2 to 3 inches of wood chips on the paths and straw on the beds.

Keep the garden small enough that the family on duty can water it in 15 minutes. If it takes longer, the schedule starts to slip.

What can each age do?

In a mixed-age co-op, everyone works in the same garden at a different depth. The mixed-age Waldorf co-op article shows the same idea for circle and painting.

Under 7: beside a parent. The youngest children copy. One parent works at the bed and the little ones join in. They water, often the same plant three times. They carry the weed bucket, and push a bean seed in with one finger. Keep a small patch or a single pot where it doesn't matter if they dig it all up again.

Grades 1 to 3: their own jobs. Children of this age can sow a row, mark it with a stick, weed a bed they know, and bring in the harvest. Grade 3 is the year of the farming block in many Waldorf schools. A co-op garden gives that block something real, like a square of wheat or beans to dry and shell. The grade 3 farming block describes the block itself.

Grades 4 and up: planning and compost. Waldorf Resources says gardening "first appears on the timetable in grade 5 or 6." In grade 6 the work is "mostly done in large groups," including "sieving and mixing compost." In a co-op, older children can keep the compost heap and draw next spring's bed plan. They can also raise seedlings and teach a younger child to sow.

The adults' job at every age is the same as in outdoor play: set up the work, do it alongside the children, and let them join in at their own pace.

A co-op garden through the school year

A co-op usually meets from autumn to early summer, so plan the garden around the weeks you're there.

Term	In the garden	At co-op
Autumn	Harvest the summer's crops. Plant garlic and bulbs, and cover the beds with leaves	Bring the harvest to the nature table, share it at snack, keep the Harvest festival
Winter	Little to do outside. Plan the beds, look at seeds	Draw the bed plan with the older children
Spring	Sow peas, radishes, lettuce, beans and potatoes	Sow at co-op, water on the schedule
Summer	Water, mulch, pick	Watering schedule, and a lighter summer co-op if you meet

KidsGardening suggests spinach, lettuce, beets and radishes for a spring and early summer harvest, or quick crops sown in late summer to be ready when the children come back. For a co-op, that second idea is worth trying: something sown in August that's ready at Michaelmas.

What supplies does a co-op garden need?

Keep it to one shed shelf or one big box:

• a hose that reaches the beds, and a watering can or two a child can carry
• 4 or 5 trowels and hand forks, some child-sized
• a bucket for weeds and a basket for the harvest
• sticks and string for marking rows
• mulch: straw, leaves or wood chips
• the instruction page, in a tin
• seeds, bought once a year from the co-op's supply budget

For the full co-op supply list, see the Waldorf co-op supply list.

Starting this season

1. Ask your host if you can have a bed or a few pots, and where.
2. Test the soil, or use raised beds with bought soil.
3. Name a garden coordinator and add the watering week to the jobs.
4. Sow one quick crop with the children at your next co-op morning.
5. Write the instruction page before the first family takes the watering week.

Starpath for co-ops is free to run, and it keeps the group calendar and jobs schedule in one place, so the watering week sits next to snack and circle.

Looking for a group with a garden already growing? The Waldorf Map lists Waldorf-inspired co-ops and schools near you.