Strategic Plan for Street School Garden in Tulsa Oklahoma

1. Street School Garden
School Garden Visioning & Strategic Planning
Christy Dancer Busch

2. Street School Mission
• Our comprehensive
and individualized
services enable
students to reach
their potential and
become responsible
and productive
adults.
• The Street School
program incorporates
teaching through real
life experiences
which reinforce key
learning outcomes.

3. The Purpose of
Street School Garden
• The garden will support the following
graduation outcomes:
– Have the Desire to Create a Healthy Lifestyle
– Become a Life Long Learner and Visionary
– Laugh Often, Love Much and Enjoy Life to the
Fullest!

4. Mission & Vision
Mission
• Real life gardening
experiences will enable
students to reach their
potential and become
responsible and
productive adults.
Vision
• Students will graduate
with a strong connection
to nature and a desire to
continue producing their
own food.

5. Our Top 5 Priorities
• Nurture and cultivate current gardens (4)
in addition to fruit and nut trees, bushes,
shrubs and vines.
• Harvest produce and share with school:
– Salads
– Smoothies
– Wraps

6. Our Goals
• Wildcrafting
• Outreach to other schools
– High School student gardeners will mentor
elementary school student gardeners.
– Develop Neighborhood Garden
• Expand Garden to include ALL
permaculture plants.

7. Plant Recommendations For E. Oklahoma
Apple
Apples and peaches are the best adapted to
Oklahoma conditions. Apples bloom later
and are less susceptible to spring frosts.
Autumn Olive
A large deciduous shrub that can grow to 20 feet -
can be somewhat invasive. Tart little red berries are
found on a shrubby tree that grows with some
profusion. Wildlife and human life can eat these
berries.
Blackberry
Blackberries grow in large tangled
mounds. Blackberries usually have twice the fruit
that a dewberry does as well as thorns.
Buffalo berry
This native shrub grows up to about 5ft tall here.
The flowers smell like cloves. The fruit goes from a
yellow to red then when ripe almost black.

8. Plant Recommendations For E. Oklahoma
Chokecherry
Large shrub or small tree to 10 m (30 ft) tall. The fruit is
used to make jellies and jams. Chokecherry provided a
staple for Native American tribes.
Chinese Chestnut
Chinese chestnuts are a favorite nut tree to plant in the
United States, because of the early production of nuts and
the cold hardiness of the chestnut plant. The Chinese
chestnut is an excellent flavored chestnut.
Currant
Currant canes lack spines or prickles and bear 8 to 30
smaller fruit in clusters (figure 1). A mature gooseberry or
currant shrub can produce up to four quarts of fruit
annually.
Sour Cherry
Sour cherries are generally better adapted to Oklahoma
than sweet cherries. ‘North Star’ sour cherry is an
exceptional dwarf tree.

9. Plant Recommendations For E. Oklahoma
Elderberry
Oklahoma is blessed with abundant elderberry bushes.
The elderberries are edible and make very good jelly, jam,
and juices. Native Americans used the berries for fever
and rheumatism.
Fig Tree
Fig trees such as the Brown turkey and the Tennessee
mountain fig trees are cold hardy. Fig tree/shrubs are
often 6’ in height. Well-drained fertile soil and full sunlight
and plenty of room to grow.
Ground Nut
Easy to start from a tuber. It reproduces quickly
underground. The tubers are edible and were a staple
food of the native Americans.
Gingko Tree
This ancient genus may date back to the dinosaurs. It is
listed with the Oklahoma forestry champion trees.

10. Plant Recommendations For E. Oklahoma
Gooseberry
The gooseberry bush has thorny, arching branches giving
the plant a height and breadth of three to five feet. Its berry
is one of the few fruits commonly picked full-size but
underripe, when it is used for cooking into jams, pies and
many varieties are excellent eaten fresh.
Goumi
Nitrogen-fixer. Fruit - raw or cooked. Pleasantly acid when
ripe, they make a very good dessert fruit though they are
usually made into pies, preserves etc. The fruit must be
fully ripe before it can be enjoyed raw.
Grape Vine
Muscadine grape vines grow well and seedless grape
vines, such as the Red Flame and Thompson are
productive. The Blue Concord, the White Niagara grapevine
and the Catawba bunch grape are also excellent.
Hawthorn
Parsley hawthorne is a small, deciduous tree or shrub with
both thorny or sometimes thornless branches. The dainty,
white, five-petaled blossoms are followed by bright-red,
persistent fruits which provides food for birds.

11. Plant Recommendations For E. Oklahoma
Hazelnut
A thicket forming spreading shrub 3 to 10 feet tall. Fruits
mature in July August in clusters of 2 to 6, seeds 3/8 to 5/8
inch diameter, light brown, sweet, edible. Seeds are
enjoyed by wildlife.
Jujube
The small fruit most closely resembles a date when dried.
Fresh jujube are crisp, with a sweet apple-like flavor. The
fruit can be enjoyed fresh, dried or candied. Jujubes are
best described as indestructible. They love hot dry areas
with poor soil. All jujubes are self pollinating.
Juniper
Resistant to most insects and diseases. The silvery blue
foliage is complemented with masses of purplish-blue
berries, a true treat for birds and other wildlife.
Jerusalem Artichoke
Tuber bearing member of the sunflower family with lovely
yellow sunflowers. The Pawnee reportedly ate them only
raw, but the other tribes ate the tubers raw, boiled, or
roasted. (Tuber – edible root such as carrot or potato)

12. Plant Recommendations For E. Oklahoma
Kiwi Vine
Actinidia arguta is a hardy kiwi. Small fruit with smooth skin.
Keeps 2 to 3 months in storage. Produces for 60 years.
Bears in 3 to 4 years. Plant 6 to 8 females per male. No
disease or insect problems. It ripens in late summer.
Black Locust
Black locust is a legume with root nodes that, along with
bacteria, "fixes" atmospheric nitrogen into the soil. Its roots
spread rapidly and it is good for erosion control. It will reach 35’
tall and 20’ wide.
Lead Plant
A small, deciduous shrub, 1-3 ft. tall, with tiny, purple flowers
grouped together in colorful, terminal spikes. Compound leaves
are covered with short, dense hairs, giving the plant a grayish
appearance. It has very deep roots, 4 feet (1.2 m) or deeper.
Pea Shrub
This perennial tree or shrub has its most active growth period
from spring until fall. It has green foliage and inconspicuous
yellow flowers, with an abundance of conspicuous brown fruits or
seeds. It will reach up to 12 feet high.

13. Plant Recommendations For E. Oklahoma
PawPaw
A patch-forming understory tree (<35’) found in well-drained,
fertile bottom-land and hilly upland habitat. The pawpaw is
the largest edible fruit indigenous to the United States. The
fruit is creamy. They are used much like bananas.
American Persimmon
These trees often grow in clusters and can grow to 100’
tall You will want to wait for the first frost to forage this fruit.
When they fall from the tree and look past the ripe stage is
just when they are perfect. They can be used for pudding
and jam.
Peach
They grow well in Oklahoma and are easy to care for.
Choose cold-tolerant varieties. The 'Redhaven,' 'Lovell' and
'Halford' cultivars are recommended. Plant the peach tree in
the spring, as soon as the ground thaws.
American Plum
A perennial tree or shrub (up to 25’) that has its most active
growth period in the spring and summer. It has green foliage
and inconspicuous white flowers, with a moderate amount of
conspicuous red fruits or seeds.

14. Plant Recommendations For E. Oklahoma
Russian Mulberry
The trees grow over 50’ tall in Oklahoma. The preferred
way to pick these berries is to spread an old sheet below
the tree and shake the limbs. The ripe berries fall freely.
Strawberry
The most successful strawberry planting receives
full sun most of the day. Irrigation water should
be available to help the plants survive dry periods
throughout the year.
Saskatoon Berry (AKA Serviceberry)
This tree can grow to over thirty feet tall in Oklahoma. It has
oval leaves that are toothed. The bloom is what stands out
to me, five petals that are long and wispy. The green berries
will turn a dark purplish color when ripe. Often used by the
Creek. It is good for jam and jelly.

15. Plant Recommendations For E. Oklahoma
Sea Buckthorn
One of the most widely grown hardy fruiting plants in the
world. The large, ornamental shrubs grow 6 to 10 feet tall
with narrow silver leaves and abundant clusters of yellow-
orange 3/8 inch fruits in late summer and fall. The berries
persist well into winter for enjoyment by birds. The fruit is
very high in Vitamins C, A and E and makes a delicious
substitute for orange juice when sweetened, the flavor is
likened to a blend of orange and passion fruit.
Silverberry
An rounded, twiggy shrub, 1-12 ft. tall, with narrow, silvery-
scurfy leaves on grayish-red branches. Cone-shaped flowers
are spicily perfumed with a heavy, sweet scent. The fruit is a
dry, mealy, whitish berry. Fast-growing, long-lived and
resistant to disease and insect problems and drought.
Sumac
Fruit form in pyramidal clusters and are hairy red berry-like
drupes that persist into winter providing interest
and food for wildlife such as bluebirds. Flowers that bloom in
spring attract bees and butterflies. Heights vary from 6-10’.

16. Team Members
Current
• 1 Teacher
• James Spicer
– Green Country
Permaculture
Potential
• 2 Teachers
• James Spicer
– Green Country
Permaculture
• 13 Students with support
from Street School Key
Club members
• Cafeteria Manager
• Building & Grounds
Manager

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Permaculture is really about relationship,
our relationship as humans to the world around us.
Will (do) we work with the natural abundance and flows
of our world and universe,
or, will (do) we ignore these?

18. Ethical Principles of Permaculture
Care of the Earth
(Rebuild nature’s capital)
Care of the People
(Nurture the self, kin and
community)
Fair Share
(Live simply so that others may
simply live)

19. BLEEP

21. 21
“The systems by which we live
today are simply,
non-sustainable.”
Bill Mollison
Permaculture
A Designer’s Manual

22. Grow Your Own Food

23. Share With Others.
Participate in a Community
Market
Edmond Farmers Market First & Littler, Edmond, Mike Clark at
359.4629.

24. Learning about and collecting native
and edible wild plants.

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