School Gardens
CROP Circles
The CROP (California Regions of Optimal Planting) Circle is an easy-to-use diagram that illustrates proper planting and harvesting times for 18 crops commonly found in California school gardens. These are optimal and recommended planting and harvesting times that can be altered to better suit your individual microclimate or school calendar. The Circle is divided into four seasons with each individual crop in its own concentric circle. The colored bars represent the months most suitable for planting that specific crop and the hash marks represent the months most suitable for harvesting that same crop. The days indicated in the parentheses are the approximate number of days after planting for the crop to reach maturity and be ready to harvest.