Gardening
Pacifica Gardens is a community garden site on the grounds of the former Linda Mar School. As a partnership with the City of Pacifica and the San Francisco Botanical Garden's Adult Education Program, the garden will be a demonstration center for biointensive gardening and permaculture techniques. Pacifica Gardens will be both an educational experience and a source of food and jobs for the local community.
The Bay Area Green Gardener Program educates and certifies residential landscapers in resource efficient and pollution prevention landscape practices.
Through community service and educational outreach, the San Mateo & San Francisco Master Gardeners provide home gardeners and community organizations the knowledge and skills to create a healthy environment for the counties.
Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale, CA is a sustainable, educational farm in Silicon Valley. The farm operates a Community-Supported Agriculture distribution system, where you can sign up to get a weekly supply of seasonal produce.
School Gardens in San Mateo County
The San Mateo County Food System Alliance (Food Alliance), a community-based collaborative of farmers, fishermen, garden-based educators, environmental advocates, farmers’ market managers, and public health professionals, seeks to promote and support a sustainable food system that is economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially just. One of the Food Alliance’s goals is to advocate for a garden in every San Mateo County school. Given the numerous benefits of garden-based education for students' physical and mental health, higher academic achievement, and improved eating habits, the Food Alliance developed “A Call to Action: A Garden in Every School.” View the brochure at http://aginnovations.org/fsa_uploads/uploads/call-to-action_GBL_final.pdf. For more information about starting or sustaining a garden in your child's school, e-mail garden@aginnovations.org.
Map of San Mateo County Public Elementary School Gardens - To add or remove a school garden or revise information on this map, email Jenn Gross at jgross@co.sanmateo.ca.us.
Health Environment Agriculture Learning Project (HEAL) is a hands-on program that teaches healthy lifestyle habits to elementary school children and raises environmental and agricultural awareness. Thanks to consistent support from Kaiser Permanente, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and the Hatch Parent Teacher Organization, HEAL will benefit more than 600 students in the Cabrillo Unified School District in San Mateo County this year.
View the study that assessed the impact of the Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) nutrition curriculum on improving the nutrition and health knowledge and vegetable preferences of second grade children. Second graders and their parents in three schools in San Mateo County participated in the study, and the Task Force provided partial funding for this study.
Collective Roots is a nonprofit organization founded and based in East Palo Alto, educates and engages youth and communities in food system change through garden-based learning and food system change. View information about events at the EPA Charter School's Garden, tips for how to start a farmers' market and much more.
Grow It, Try It, Like It! Preschool Fun with Fruits and Vegetables is a garden-themed nutrition education kit for child care center staff, developed by the USDA. Each set of lessons in the six fruit or vegetable booklets contains hands-on activities, planting activities, and nutrition education activities that introduce MyPyramid for Preschoolers.
The Edible Schoolyard, in collaboration with Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in Berkeley, CA, provides urban public school students with a one-acre organic garden and a kitchen classroom. Learn how to start a garden, view classroom and kitchen lessons, and read about how Alice Waters' school garden undertaking started a movement.
The California School Garden Network serves as a central organization that distributes school garden resources and support throughout the state.
Nutrition Education-Gardening with Children, developed by the USDA, includes information about gardening with children and has links to information about how to start gardens in schools or child care centers.
Kidsgardening,org features stories about successful garden programs, grants, classroom activities and more.
Sustainable Agriculture
What is Sustainable Agriculture? (UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program)
Local Resources
As Fresh As It Gets program in San Mateo County offers awards to restaurants that use local, fresh produce. It also holds ongoing events in the community. This website includes information about award recipients.
San Mateo County produce and fish calendar and market/farm locations.
The San Mateo County Food System Alliance is a collaborative of food system stakeholders working to create a healthier and more vibrant local food economy.
Eating Sustainably Guide lists the sustainable food resources in the Peninsula and the South Bay, including farmers' markets, organic community supported agriculture farms, organic produce delivery services, grocery stores, local organic food brands.
Reports, Websites and Other Resources
The Climate-Friendly Gardener: A Guide to Combating Global Warming from the Ground Up, created by the Union of Concerned Scientists, provides tools and techniques for climate-friendly home gardening.
Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) defines sustainable agriculture.
American Planning Association's Policy Guide on Community and Regional Food proposes seven policies that planners can support related to sustainable food systems.
Cultivating Common Ground: Linking Health and Sustainable Agriculture (The Prevention Institute)
The Ag Futures and Food System Alliance movement is project to bring together food producers, consumers, local leaders, health care advocates, and environmentalists to work at county-level action to create a food system that matches our hopes and dreams for the future.
Institute for Fisheries Resources gives information about when local seafood and fish are in season and where to buy them.
Urban and Environmental Policy Institute published Supporting Local Agriculture and Improving Health Care.
Small Farms/School Meals Initiatives, created by the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Services, is a step-by-step guide to bringing small farms and local schools together.
General information about farm-to-school programs (Communiity Food Security Coalition)