Students prefer hands-on learning, and school gardens combine environmental science, fresh-air exercise and nutrition with fun. You can raise funds to start a school garden or some other needed project with a fundraiser, including SchoolGardenCo's handmade herbal lotions and soaps. They'll split the sales with your school or charity 50/50. For how-tos on starting school gardens, see Resources, below.

 

Or, you can help by simply buying School Garden Co.'s products as gifts, because they give all their after-tax profits to school garden programs. Even indoor gardeners get dry, chapped hands, and the most comforting salve we've found is their Hand Help, an opulent lotion with a just-right texture (not too hard, not too oily) made of beeswax and olive, rosemary, lavender and calendula oils, $12 for a bright rose 2-oz. tin. A little goes a long way. They also make a Hand Healer with yarrow, comfrey and sage, and chapstick, bath salts, bar soaps; see their gift box.  

 

Dishwashers will also appreciate the Gardener's Carrot Salve ($5.99) from Purple Prairie Botanicals, which uses organic beeswax, olive and coconut oil, as well as carrot and other plant oils. With no petrochemicals in any of their made-in-Minnesota products, Purple Prairie is a signatory of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics pledge to rid products of toxic ingredients. Can't resist PP's Carrot Rose face cream, perfectly pure and only $6.99 for 2 oz. 

 

Resources: It's never too early to plan a garden; below, some tips and info.

 

*At Ecoliteracy, your school can get a free book on designing a school garden.

 

*Click here for how to get grants and raise funds.

 

*California School Garden Network provides a plethora of info and links. So does the Arts & Ecology Center in Sonoma Valley, CA.

 

*Competitive colleges, take heed: Yale's sustainable food system includes an organic farm that that supplies its dorm dining halls.