A sustainable garden project
I gave a talk at the March in the Park on the 14th. This is some of what I talked about.
I want to talk about a garden – a middle school garden – Trafalgar Middle School. It started with their Builder’s Club, a middle school branch of Kiwanis. Kiwanis is a global organization of adult volunteers dedicated to improving the world, one child and one community at a time in middle school, their organization is the Builder’s Club.
In 2013, my middle daughter teaching at Trafalgar had an adjoining room to Al Piotter, a math teacher whose duties also had him responsible for their Builder’s Club. The students had decided in 2013, they wanted to grow fresh vegetables for the Soup Kitchen where they were volunteering on Saturdays. They needed the principal’s permission to plant on school property. They got it and were given a soccer field near 20th Street, 200 feet by 100 feet, with a water source.
The fact that Al Piotter knew nothing about gardening didn’t stop him. He’s a true organizer. He found grants for money, sought donations for anything needed garden wise, visited every community garden and their organizers for how-to info, spoke to related providers and received tons of info. What he needed were people to help him put it in action. My daughter mentioned that her mother was a Master Gardener and had helped with smaller gardening projects at the school. Summertime 2013, I was contacted and went to Roy Beckford, then the agriculture and natural resources agent at the Extension and who is now the extension agent; so did Al.
Al asked the teachers what they wanted grown. I searched all my IFAS gardening books for plants that grow well in South Florida and related articles. We drew up a plan to use half the garden space to begin, 100 feet by 100 feet then, do a second crop in late October. Finally we all sat down with Lowe’s (they gave him a grant and an irrigation system) workers, teachers, Al, students from the Builder’s Club, Roy Beckford and me – laying out a plan and time schedule.
Gardening stages are – 1. Planning, 2. Implementing, 3.Weeding and Feeding and 4. Harvesting.
The garden was surrounded by fruit trees. A whole row of banana plants ran north to south on the west end The city planted three fruit trees here on National Arbor Day. Fruitscapes from Pine Island edged the garden with fruit trees.
School opened in early August in 2013. Al had the garden area covered with black gardening mesh cloth to keep the nematodes out of the soil we placed on top, then added rows of organic soil. Al had compost bins set up. Three huge mounds of mulch for the paths began appearing because the tree service man chopping up mulch had been a student of Al’s in Michigan. He became a real partner. Mounds of soil appeared. A mix-up with Burpee Seeds had them donating 500 free seed packets.
As soon as school started, parents, friends, Master Gardeners, students, teachers and their spouses, pitched in to set the plan in action. I was told my job was advisory and planning, because the students were to do all the work. We got the garden set up for them. Heavy fence posts and wire fencing were placed for vine supports. Rachael Singletary came, taught vermiculture and helped teachers put worm boxes in their classrooms. Worm castings and worm tea became our fertilizer.
Teaching students to be “stewards of the land” is an exciting experience. I am not able to garden anymore, but I was waiting for my friend, Judith Peltier, to come back South from her place on an island in Maine. She is a Master Gardener and a former school teacher. We were dealing with middle school youth, knowing full well they have to be shown how to do any job and to work alongside them to keep them plugging away at their jobs. Judith could do that and use her skills of managing young students. Oh how I longed for October and Judith to get down here to join us. Parents showed up and helped guide all the students. After working 30 hours in the garden, the students earned a TMS Garden Club shirt.
Starting early in August, we had the students filling up seed pots, then poking a pencil in three places, dropping in seeds. These were placed on wooden tables and boards on top of cement blocks to keep them up out of the soil, away from nematodes. Shade clothes were placed over them held up by PVC poles. Watering them every day became one of the students’ jobs. When seedlings appeared and grew, they placed them in the gardens. Students were amazed at how fast plants grew and that food has to come from the earth before it gets to the grocery store. Watching fruit set on the blooming plants was exciting; weeding them not so much. It became their treat, if they behaved, to be able to pick fresh vegetables and strawberries.
Since food and health laws prevented these vegetables from being used in the school, they had to be kept until Saturday trips to the food kitchens, where the students helped serve. Al soon learned that poundage was what he wanted in order to do a ton of fresh vegetables, then, he surpassed that number. Teachers did get to come and pick lettuce leaves for their salads because lettuce leaves did not add to the tonnage of produce. This also lead to discussions of “vegetables don’t wait to ripen. They need to be picked at their fullest ripeness.”
We used four raised beds for root crops and four big mounds that provided more surface space than flat land for plants and did strawberries on them.
We had successes and we had some failures. We learned that strawberries slide down hill in rain get their crowns full of dirt – and smother. Our local bunny ate the green beans and every kind of bean we planted and where we had placed topsoil, crops were spindly. When you think about it, top soils have pests, diseases and pesticides used on it. Not good for organic food. Fresh organic compost soil was the best. Also, we never could get crop family rotation into Al’s head. Vegetables come in families, know them and rotate for healthier crops, at least every three years.
Also – build or plant a garden and the insects will come. Recognize the good bugs, don’t kill indiscriminately.
Summertime lead to pulled up aged crops for the compost piles and a resting of the soil. Would have liked to do greening crops, but with no one to maintain a summer crop, it didn’t happen. Mistakes became a learning lesson.
Another year wiser, we have learned and started anew. Things have changed. The Health Department is allowing us to use the produce in the schools; the principal, Dr. Michael Galbreath, has given our middle school math teacher an exploratory class for gardening, to teach and work the gardens. This all helps in their science, math and social studies, to say nothing about their learning what good fresh food is.
Each February we share with the community a Taste of the Gardens, cooking our produce and sharing it. Roy Beckford put the gardens on the Extension’s farm bus tour this year that just arrived near the end of February. Riders got out and were allowed to pick vegetables from the garden with a grand tour by Al.
Al carefully documented with pictures, records and community people helping by signing time sheets. Kiwanis wants to know about projects done by their members. Al sent in his well documented project. Visit any Saturday morning, or after school (4 p.m.) Tuesday and Thursday. See our results.
Thank a tree for fresh air.
-Joyce Comingore is a Master Gardener, hibiscus enthusiast and member of the Garden Club of Cape Coral.