By Jenny Hoang
With
the incoming frost, Whatcom Middle School children plant the last cloves of
garlic on their recently built garden.
Tessa Bundy, garden educator for Common Threads Consortium, and Paul Kearsley,
owner of Homestead Habitats landscaping company, gather every Wednesday 3:15
p.m. after early release to lead the students in the school’s garden club in
creating their own garden.
The
project officially started Sept. 2012 after five months of planning and the
children finished planting the last seeds Nov. 7. During the winter months when the seeds lay dormant in the
frozen ground, the children will work on other activities such as plant
research and field trips to nurseries.
They are also planning on creating a simple irrigation system.
The
garden is located next to the portable classrooms in the back of the school on
the corner of Irving Street and F Street.
Three long beds for annual crops, harvested and replanted every year,
create the body of the garden while the fenced border is lined with perennial
crops. These perennial crops, such
as plum trees and pear trees, are easier to maintain and will not need to be
replanted.
“It
will leave a legacy and will be fun for students to come back and see their
trees grow large,” Bundy said.
Eight
students, ages 12-14, collaborated with Principal Jeff Coulter to facilitate
the gardening project in the 2011-2012 school year. By mid-Sept. Kearsley volunteered with the coordinating team
and, with his landscaping expertise, helped the students figure out different
elements of design.
“In
hindsight, I wish I would have learned about it at an earlier age,” Kearsley
says. He believes growing food is
an important commodity in modern world.
“When
the school burned down in 2009, it destroyed our previous plans to build a
garden,” Coulter says. He made
prior garden proposals in 2007.
Because
Common Threads Consortium, an organization that provides “seed-to-table”
education, completed successful gardens with other schools, Coulter contacted
the Director Laura Plaut to help organize the project.
“We
had the funds and the plan for the garden, but what was critical was setting
the date and getting materials,” Coulter says. “The garden coordinators really
utilized human resources.”
During
the school’s event, Make a Difference Day on Oct. 27, the coordinators
recruited about 50 community members to help break ground on the garden
project.
“We
had grandmas hefting wheel barrows,” Coulter said.
After
the 2009 fire, the community donated funds for the school. With the support from the community and
donations from multiple services, such as fertilizer from Sanitary Services,
the project cost amounted to $3,000.
The bulk of the cost is allocated towards an annual membership with the
Common Threads Consortium.
“We
are just getting started,” Coulter said.
“When you put in a garden, it is always a process.”
He
hopes to expand the project in the spring by involving more students, and
adding more components to the garden, like a hoop house. A hoop house is a cheap, easy-to-built,
plastic-covered green house
Bundy
believes “seed-to-table” education will benefit the students.
“If
people have an intimate relationship with food, then they will make healthier
eating choices,” Bundy says.
Penn
State University Assistant Prof. Dorothy Blair’s 2009 case study of nationwide
elementary gardening programs prove garden education to be beneficial to the
learning environment. Nine
qualitative studies unanimously reported positive learning and behavior effects
of school gardening or garden involvement.
“The
big hope is that our students will develop a better understanding where their
food is from,” Coulter says. He
believes growing food is a process of delayed gratification.
Coulter
plans to create a partnership with parents and students by renting out plots
once the garden is more established.
For now, the students of garden club will be planning more additions for
the coming spring.