More Than a School Garden

Written by: The Permakultura Dalmacija team

Every school has outdoor space. Surprisingly few schools truly use it.

In Europe, children spend more time indoors than ever before, while schools are expected to prepare them for a future shaped by climate change, biodiversity loss and growing social challenges. Yet the land surrounding many schools remains little more than a playground or an empty green area, rarely recognised as a place where learning, community and nature can meet.

In Split, a coastal city on the Adriatic in Croatia, we began asking a simple question: “What if school grounds became one of the most important classrooms a school has?”. The answer turned out to be much bigger than gardens.

Over the past several years, Permakultura Dalmacija has worked with primary schools to transform neglected outdoor spaces into school gardens and outdoor classrooms. What emerged was not simply greener schoolyards, but stronger relationships between children and nature, teachers and pupils, schools and neighbourhoods, and ultimately between people themselves. 

Permakultura Dalmacija is often described as an environmental organisation, but we see ourselves more as a platform that brings together people with different knowledge, professions and interests through the shared language of permaculture design. Our work is guided by a simple belief: the most resilient solutions appear when we connect people instead of separating them, and when we value cooperation across disciplines and communities. School gardens became a natural place for these connections to grow. 

When we started working with the primary schools Skalice and Brda, we were not responding to a lack of green space. We were responding to something less visible: the missed opportunity to use those spaces as part of everyday education. Climate change, biodiversity and food systems are often taught as abstract topics inside classrooms. Yet just outside the school doors lay an opportunity for children to experience these ideas directly, to grow food, observe insects, care for soil and understand the changing seasons through their own hands.

What we did not expect was how many people were already waiting for such an opportunity.

Teachers invested countless hours because they believed children deserved richer learning experiences. Principals supported ideas that reached beyond routine school maintenance. School staff solved practical challenges, while pupils brought imagination and enthusiasm that continually surprised us. Before long, parents, neighbours and volunteers became part of the story as well.

Looking back, we realised that the gardens did not grow because funding became available.They grew because people cared.

Of course, financial support mattered. Association Sunce played a crucial role by providing funding, project coordination and administrative support. City companies contributed plants, machinery and technical assistance. Volunteers donated thousands of hours of work. Parents helped during community activities, while pupils planted, built, observed and learned.

But the real driving force came from the schools themselves. Without motivated teachers, supportive principals and committed staff, these places would never have become part of everyday school life.

That may be the most important lesson we have learned: Projects can build infrastructure. Communities keep it alive.

Areas that had once been overlooked turned into some of the most vibrant places in the school. Outdoor classrooms began hosting science, literature, art and environmental lessons. Children learned by planting, observing and experimenting instead of only reading about nature in textbooks. School gardens became spaces where curiosity could flourish naturally.

At Skalice Primary School, neighbours began visiting the garden simply because it had become a welcoming place to spend time. Some started helping with maintenance, not because anyone had asked them to, but because they felt the space belonged to the whole community. The school was no longer seen as an isolated institution. It had become part of neighbourhood life. 

The gardens also showed us that they could become places of inclusion.

One of our most meaningful collaborations developed with Association Feniks, which supports people experiencing mental health challenges. Together we organised gardening and woodworking workshops where participants created furniture and other elements for the outdoor classrooms. The value of this partnership was never the furniture itself. It was the opportunity for people with different experiences to contribute to a place that children, teachers and neighbours would later use together.

After one of our seedling workshops, we found ourselves with more tomato plants than we could use in the school garden. Rather than letting them go to waste, teachers invited younger pupils to take them home. It was a simple decision that required no funding, no strategy and no expectations.

A few months later, parents began contacting us.

Children had planted the tomatoes on balconies, terraces, in small gardens and even in pots outside apartment buildings. They watered them every day, proudly watched the first flowers appear and counted the green fruits as they ripened.

One parent smiled and told us: “We had never eaten tomatoes that tasted this good.”

We still remember that sentence.

Not because the tomatoes were extraordinary, but because of what they represented.

For many children, it was the first time they had experienced food as something they had grown themselves rather than something that simply appeared in a supermarket. Parents were not just tasting a tomato. They were sharing an experience that had connected their family through care, patience and curiosity.

Without anyone planning it, the project had travelled beyond the school fence.

It had entered homes.

Moments like this remind us that meaningful change rarely begins with large investments or ambitious policies. More often, it begins with small experiences that quietly change how people relate to nature, food and each other.

The gardens also strengthened relationships between organisations that had rarely worked together before. Schools, environmental organisations, mental health professionals, volunteers, municipal companies and local residents all contributed in different ways. Everyone brought different knowledge and resources, creating something that none of them could have achieved alone.

This is why we often say that we do not design gardens. We design relationships.

Although we are proud of what has already been achieved, we believe the greatest opportunities still lie ahead.

Today, projects like these still depend too heavily on enthusiastic teachers, supportive principals and successful funding applications. We hope school gardens and outdoor classrooms will become a normal part of educational planning rather than exceptional examples.

The City of Split has an important opportunity to make this happen by providing long-term support for school gardens, investing in teacher education and recognising outdoor learning as an essential part of quality education. Schools also benefit enormously from learning from one another. Sharing successful examples and encouraging collaboration between schools could help outdoor learning become part of everyday educational practice.

Our experience has also shown that conversations about food should not stop at the edge of the countryside.

Most people now live in cities, yet many have little opportunity to grow food or experience where it comes from. Despite strong public interest, Split still lacks a network of community gardens. Creating more opportunities for urban food growing would not only improve biodiversity and climate resilience but also strengthen neighbourhoods, public health and people’s connection with nature.

School gardens are an important first step. When we imagine the future, our vision is remarkably simple. We hope every primary school in Split will one day have its own school garden and outdoor classroom. We hope schools will exchange ideas, learn from one another and continue shaping these places together with pupils, parents and their local communities.

Above all, we hope our experience encourages other communities to look differently at the places they already have.

Every school has outdoor space. Every community has people who care. Sometimes that is all that is needed to begin. When we think back to everything these projects have brought us, we rarely remember the number of trees planted or the hours of volunteer work invested.

Instead, we remember one smiling parent saying:

“We had never eaten tomatoes that tasted this good.”

For us, that simple sentence captures the essence of a sustainable community.

It is built when children proudly carry a tomato plant home, when neighbours begin caring for a shared garden, when teachers rediscover the joy of learning outdoors, and when schools become places that connect people instead of simply educating them.

A school garden is never just a garden.

It is the beginning of relationships that continue to grow long after the first seeds have been planted.