The Delta High School garden has been teaching students how to grow their own nutritious produce since it was first constructed in 2017, but thanks to a recent community partnership, the high school is now taking its agricultural endeavors up a notch.
“Over the last year or so, I had just been wishing that we could expand our garden,” said Jeff Cooper, a social sciences teacher at Delta and one of the faculty members involved with maintaining the garden. “I’ve always had this vision of being more sustainable, but sustainable isn’t free. … I wanted to take it next level, but I just didn’t know how.”
In a twist of serendipity, Cooper found exactly who he was looking for: Armando Gonzalez, owner of Armando’s Autobody in Santa Maria.
“I just happened to run into Armando while getting my car fixed this summer,” Cooper recalled. “I started telling him about how I was doing gardening at Delta, and he was kind of blown away and said, ‘I’d like to help you.’”
As it turned out, Gonzalez has more than one trick up his sleeve: In addition to owning his shop, Gonzalez has a background in sustainable and soilless farm production, he told the Sun.
“During our conversation, he started picking my brain as far as trying to do some soilless gardening and taking the garden to the 21st century,” Gonzalez said. “I decided to stop by and take a look at his garden. … I took it to heart from there.”
Since partnering in July, Gonzalez has helped Cooper, the other involved faculty members, and their students make state-of-the-art updates to the garden. He’s also supplied much of the materials needed to bring it all to life.
“He’s completely provided all the piping and everything else to change the way we’re running the drip to the plants, so we’ve got a system that feeds the roots of the entire plant, not just in one part of the soil,” Cooper said.
Gonzalez said the new vertical garden is not only more efficient, but also allows for more students to take the process home with them.
“You don’t have to have a lot of square footage to actually grow, and you don’t have to use a lot of water because you’re recirculating, so you actually save 90 percent of your water consumption,” he said. “It’s a faster growth process, which gives you the opportunity to do more cycles per year and you get a higher yield. … We want to teach them that you don’t need to have a big backyard or you don’t need to have soil in your backyard. You could actually just have a balcony and be able to produce food.”
Biology teacher Juan Sanchez and crisis intervention counselor Tami Contreras also help with the garden. Cooper said between his discipline as a social sciences teacher, Sanchez in the science department, and Contreras helping students who may be struggling, the garden has provided a unique space for each of them.
“It’s been part therapy space, part laboratory for science classes,” Cooper said. “I started teaching indigenous, pre-Columbian agricultural practices in my world history classes.”
Cooper also teaches psychology, and he said he’s witnessed the impact that healthy, sustainably grown food can have on someone’s physical and mental health, especially young people.
“I’ve noticed over the last couple of decades that students’ nutritional health has been in decline,” he said. “Food we’re getting isn’t as nutrient-rich as it used to be. One of the major causes [of mental health issues] is our nutritional habits.”
While COVID-19 has presented some challenges to the garden’s typical operations—before the days of social distancing, the garden would sometimes occupy 35 students at once—Cooper said the garden has continued to help his students’ well-being during a trying time.
“Having students come and work outdoors, being able to interact, be in the sunlight, having their hands working in the soil, growing something—all those things are very beneficial for mental as well as physical health,” he said. “We’re taking advantage of the time we have to actually make this transformation.”
Highlight
• The Santa Barbara Foundation is partnering with the city of Santa Maria to help businesses impacted by COVID-19 related hardships with a second round of funding from the Santa Barbara Better Together Fund Small Business Grant Program. Up to $7,500 will be awarded per grant to small businesses in the city that are reopening and following COVID-19 guidelines—the application is open until Nov. 2. For more information in English and in Spanish, visit sbfoundation.org.
Staff Writer Malea Martin wrote this week’s Spotlight. Send news tips to spotlight@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2020.
