“Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
Gonna mulch it deep and low
Gonna make it fertile ground”
— David Mallett
School gardens can be classed as one of the most special places in a school, offering fertile ground for children’s learning. In a school garden, students of every age can learn about plant growth, insects, the life to be found in healthy soil and more. A school garden provides the first practical science lessons.
Sunderland Elementary School has had a small garden for the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes. For some years, these young children have been able to get their hands dirty and learn to use their eyes as plants are transformed from a tiny shoot, to a flower or a carrot. However, when they graduated from kindergarten, they lost their garden and the fun and learning they had there.
That loss was corrected. Early in the spring of 2017, Flora Cox, Amanda Berg, Darrel Beymer and Molly Wickline, who all work at the school in various capacities, formed a garden committee with the goal of starting a new garden.
“The garden gave us a wonderful opportunity to teach science in a playful and natural way,” Cox said. “We looked for earthworms, wooly bears, grubs, insects; talked about weeds and learned how to pull them out; plant our own produce like kale and carrots, and learn how to harvest them, and, of course, eat them. But once the kids graduated from kindergarten, there was really no carryover to the upper grades.”
So, the newly formed garden committee settled on a piece of land that would become home to another garden.
“We staked out a plot in the back playground, removed the sod, and had each grade plant their own crop,” Cox said. “They started their seeds indoors and planted them outside. Some seeds like carrots and potatoes were direct sown. Everyone loved doing it. Some vegetables were harvested by children in the summer program. Others like potatoes were harvested in October, and cooked and eaten in the first grade classroom by the former kindergartners, now first-graders, who had planted them.”
Success must build on success. This year, the Sunderland community got involved. Whately farmer J. M. Pasiecnik, the Sunderland Parent-Teacher Organization, Deerfield Pharmacy, Sugarloaf Nurseries and Cowls Building Supply provided the money to buy the wood, screws and chicken wire for the garden. Warner Brothers Construction donated 12 yards of soil, while Atlas Farm and Riverland Farm donated plants. Other donors supplied trowels and gloves.
Jeff Hubbard and his tractor removed the sod and leveled the site. The garden’s raised beds and fences were built by the garden committee members with help from Vinnie Cabriotti, a parent, and Douglas Cox, a horticulture professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The sixth-graders joined in the fun, too.
“Mrs. Von Flatern’s sixth-grade class made 3-D models of our garden from my scaled landscape design, and also calculated a hypothetical supply list, a great real life math application that they loved,” Cox said.
Last week, I got to meet the garden committee and see the garden myself. Berg introduced me to Beymer and Wickline, and Cox gave me a tour of the garden that was built beyond the wonderful playground. Several children who were still at school for the after-school schedule followed us into the garden. There were cherry tomatoes to eat, and even kale leaves to nibble.
Cox told me that the garden lent itself to nibbling, but children and parents who stopped by the school during the summer to water (not often necessary this past summer) and weed, were able to take home a vegetable or two for dinner.
“I was also surprised at the way the first-graders ate that kale,” Cox said.
Gardens are always a work in progress. These students are observing and learning how the soil can be improved, and what crops would be best to grow next year. There is always next year.
When we left the vegetable garden, we made a stop at the large pollinator garden which is a Monarch Waystation. This big, wild-looking garden has plants that bees and butterflies like including butterfly bushes, coneflowers, milkweed and Joe Pye weed. The children are learning about the importance of these insects, and what they need.
I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to this school garden, and am happy to report that there are other school gardens where students of all ages learn to follow the cycles of the seasons, and about the life cycles of insects and plants. Four Corners Elementary School in Greenfield, for example, continues the school garden they’ve had for about five years. I know of at least 10 other school gardens.
Additionally, Amy Donovan of the Franklin County Solid Waste Management District has put 30 vermiculture bins in school classrooms so children can see how worms live and how they make compost.
The Hawlemont Regional Elementary School has created an entire curriculum around agriculture called Hawlemont, Agriculture and You (HAY). They now have a barn for goats and sheep, a hen house, a greenhouse and gardens! Beyond classes, children learn more agricultural skills in the after-school 4-H clubs.
A garden offers lessons in science and in close observation, but also in counting and calculating, reading and recording. And, like plants, inch by inch, our children grow and grow.
Pat Leuchtman has been writing and gardening since 1980. Readers can leave comments at her website: www.commonweeder.com.