Urban Agriculture for Beginners

Food Security and Container Gardens: 

Randall Astorga explaining the principles of permaculture to members of Science Teacher Matt Hueston’s Robotics Club

On two successive Saturdays in June, we introduced the Astorga brothers, permaculture and ecotourism teachers, from Costa Rica to members of the Bound Brook High School Robotics Club.

Science Teacher Matt Hueston allowed us to come and present the idea to the club after school a week or so earlier. The idea was to introduce the students to some elements of sustainable urban agriculture by having them get an introduction from Randall and Esteban Astorga and start container gardens that they could take home with real vegetables, from basil to beans, growing in them.

By way of background, we provided each participant with a short information sheet on Food Security and Container Gardens. (And the Promenade Boulevard Home Depot provided grow boxes and raised bed soil for twenty students. We acknowledge them further below.)

On the first weekend only four students showed up, but they were highly attentive and remained interested through to the end. On the second weekend, the Astorgas had them become small group leaders to the other ten or twelve students who came, and each of them showed four or five others how to plant their boxes.

Here are some photos and videos from the event:

Randall and Esteban at the white board explaining the layers of a natural ecosystem.

The first four students (Zaire, Fatimah, Eric, and Andy) to take the class became assistant instructors the following Saturday.

 

Videos:

In the classroom-Day1

Intro-Day2

Day 2 – Science Teacher Matt Hueston explains the goals

Day 2 – Filling the boxes

Other videos and photos available on request. Here are some additional pictures, mostly from the second event:

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