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Are you overwhelmed by the idea of fertilizing your school garden during summer break—or worse, feeling disappointed when your garden underperforms come fall?

In this episode, Leila Mireskandari shares a powerful shift in perspective: you don’t need to fertilize your school garden during summer at all—if you set it up right from the beginning.

💡 Learn why proactive garden design is more powerful than constant summer maintenance, and how proper soil prep, smart plant choices, and working with nature can eliminate fertilizing from your summer to-do list entirely.

🌱 What You’ll Learn:

• Why fertilizing can (and should) be skipped in a well-designed school garden
• The #1 mistake teachers make that creates a need for summer fertilizing
• How to choose the right crops to avoid summer headaches
• The importance of working with nature instead of against it
• How some teachers grow 20+ varieties of food with no fertilizing and minimal summer work

📚 Resources Mentioned:

• 📝 Free List of Recommended Seeds for School Gardens
• 🌼 Free Guide: How to Minimize Summer Maintenance in School Gardens
• 💻 Low-Cost Webinar + Full Class: Grow a School Garden with Almost No Summer Maintenance

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to make your school garden more manageable, this episode will help you feel empowered to design a garden that thrives—without burnout.

👉 Listen now and take the first step toward a stress-free, abundant school garden!

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Welcome back to School Gardens with Ease! I’m your host, Leila Mireskandari, and in this episode, we’re tackling a question that comes up a lot around this time of year:

👉 How much cleanup does a school garden really need in the summer?

If you’re a bit of a clean freak when it comes to your school garden—or you’re feeling overwhelmed by summer maintenance—this episode is for you.

We’ll explore:

• The difference between necessary and unnecessary cleaning
• Why a productive vegetable garden isn’t always a neat one
• How to balance structure with nature’s wild beauty
• What cleanup tasks actually matter
• Why you shouldn't lock your school garden up for the summer
• How to design a low-maintenance garden that thrives even when school’s out

🌿 Spoiler: The best gardens work with nature, not against it. And yes—you can have a thriving garden with almost no summer maintenance.

🎓 Want to go deeper? In my class "School Gardens with Almost No Summer Maintenance," I teach everything you need to know to build and grow your garden with your students during the school year—so summer takes care of itself.

🔗 Click here to learn more about the class

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Weeding might be the most dreaded chore for school garden volunteers, especially during the summer—but what if it didn’t have to be? In this episode, Leila challenges the common belief that weeds are inevitable in gardens. She breaks down why weeds show up, how our cultural biases shape our attitudes toward them, and how you can design your school garden to prevent them in the first place.

She also shares her favorite Permaculture trick for eliminating weeds before they even appear—plus the real reason why a volunteer rose plant didn’t stand a chance in her own backyard garden!

🌿 What You’ll Learn

• Why weeds are not a given in well-planned gardens
• How to design your school garden to minimize weeding
• What a “weed” really is (hint: it’s all about perspective!)
• Why bare soil is an open invitation for weeds—and how to prevent that
• The surprising benefits of weeds in some garden ecosystems
• How sheet mulching can be a total game-changer for weed control

🛠️ Mentioned in This Episode

• 🌼 Sheet Mulching – A powerful Permaculture technique you’ll want to try.
• 📚 School Gardens with Almost No Summer Maintenance – Includes a full "Weeds Module" with step-by-step strategies and downloadable guides. (Link in the show notes.)

📌 Key Takeaway

If your garden is full of weeds, it’s not a sign of failure—it’s nature doing her job. But with intentional planting and smart soil coverage, you can avoid weeding altogether… and finally enjoy a low-maintenance, student-led school garden.

👩‍🏫 Ready to Make Weeding a Thing of the Past?

Check out Leila’s class:
👉 School Gardens with Almost No Summer Maintenance
Includes a full weeds module, spacing plans, PDF guides, and everything you need to ditch the weeding chore—forever.

🌻 Stay Connected

Thanks for tuning in! Subscribe, rate, and review if you’re loving the podcast—and come back next week for more tips to grow a thriving school garden with ease.