Granada Hills & Portola Middle School

This area began as a small shared backyard space between two households on the property. Initially neglected and overrun with “weeds,” it had only a ficus tree and a few native plants scattered around. SSC volunteers transformed the space by installing a banana circle system to serve as a compost sink, turning waste into food and biomass for soil building. They dug a 6’ wide by 2’ deep compost pit, filled it with locally collected biomass, constructed a circular raised earthen garden bed around it, and amended the soil with JADAM microorganism solution (JMS). After preparing the soil, they planted a syntropic-style consortium on the raised bed and in nearby fruit tree planters. The garden now includes bananas, biomass plants (Mexican sunflower, pigeon pea), and polyculture of annual and perennial crops (popcorn, black-eyed peas, Cypriot squash, chaya, sweet potatoes, turmeric), along with various fruit trees and perennials in the surrounding beds (Pakistani mulberry from the Birdhouse, dwarf almond, Jerusalem artichokes, aloe vera, prickly pear, vetiver grass, and sugarcane). The banana circle garden is now thriving and is being tended by one of the households on the property