A garden of any kind is a place to nourish the body and nourish the mind. The garden located on our K-12 campus is rapidly fulfilling even more...it is becoming an invaluable classroom for students of all ages in art, science, biology, architecture, agriculture, math, to name just a few.
OUR GARDEN'S STORY by Pam Jenkins, Kindergarten Teacher at Orcas Elementary School 7/9/10
The School Garden was first started by Valerie Sloan, who was teaching at the school about 13 years ago. Valerie had the vision, got some grant money for the fencing and got us started. When she left a few years later, the garden returned to sod. About 9 years ago, I asked Josephine Bangs, a fabulous gardener who had a son in my kindergarten class at the time, if she would help us get the garden going again. I had no idea the real magnitude of the work that would be involved to get it ready for planting. Josephine agreed on the condition that I would help see that it continued beyond that one year. I also had no idea what I was committing to, but fortunately, we both made the commitment. Josephine more than met hers by doing most of the work for the next 7 or so years!
Our goal was to have an organic garden where
children could experience helping things grow, see and be a part of the
process, eat produce directly from the garden and prepared in the
classroom, have a more personal connection with their food and marvel at
the wonders of nature and the interdependence of living things.
Over the 7-8 years that Josephine helped with the garden, she did most
of the physical labor - prepping beds, bringing in and planting starts,
setting up trellises, weeding, advising on what to start and plant when,
cleaning out the winter mess and prepping beds again, while prodding
me, politely, to organize weeding parties, waterers, getting the
blackberries that grew over and through the fence lopped back, to plant
whatever it was time to plant.... I called her our "garden angel," and
the sight of her in the garden in her work clothes and baseball cap
always filled me with a huge sense of relief mixed with guilt.
While
all the teachers were invited to participate, without the help of
several adult volunteers, it was difficult for most of us to take the
whole class out for any length of time to work in the garden. However,
we did get enough parent and other volunteer help to keep it alive
through each summer, flowers and vegetables growing and the
blackberries, bind weed, nettles and sod from taking over. Many of our
local farmers have donated starts over these many years, parents and
other community members have volunteered time and labor, and a wonderful
garden shed. Our hardware stores have donated or given us discounts on
supplies and the Garden Club and Master Gardeners have donated to our
garden. Finally, it was time for Josephine to move on and offer her
expertise and hard work elsewhere. I had no idea how we would manage
to keep this garden going without her.
All of us who cared
about it - teachers, parents, farmers, gardeners - had very full
lives. For years now, I have thought each year could be the last year
of the garden. There just aren't enough people with enough time to keep
it going, but then it miraculously does another year. I have always
taken the kindergartners to the garden to observe, draw and paint there,
find and try what is edible, harvest and make vegetable soup, pumpkin
pie in the fall and salad for our Appreciation Tea in the spring to
thank all who have helped us with our learning and growth over the
year. Garden experiences connected to our learning in math, reading and
writing, as well as science. We've learned about compost, explored
what is in different soils and why, sold extra produce, starts and seeds
at our "Farmers Market" stand outside of the elementary school, and
learned we love to eat raw kale, peppery nasturtium flowers and feathery
fennel leaves.
This past year has been the most rewarding
for me in seeing the involvement all children K-6 have had in the
garden, thanks to Mandy Randolph creating the Farm-to-Classroom
program. She has done a stunning job given that the concept just came
to her as school started this past year and she found she would have an
hour each week with each of the K-6 classes and no structure for that
hour. Mandy had begun to get involved and interested in the school
garden when she and I co-taught kindergarten the year before. With
support from the F2Cafeteria grant, committee and Bruce Orchid, Mandy
had the children cooking with local guest chefs, learning about their
food, making taste comparisons of fresh, local produce with that
purchased from farther away, harvesting, planting and weeding in the
garden and much more. What she has done in this one year is
astounding! We so hope that she, or someone, can continue with that
program.
Ronda Barbieri of La Campesina Project has also
been very supportive of our garden for the past 3 years. She loves
children and feels called to help them understand their place in the
cycle of life through experiences in gardening and farming. Rhonda not
only supplies us with most of the starts and seeds we need, she advises
on planting times, and rotates visiting us at school and in our garden
with trips to her farm during the different seasons. Other farmers have
also generously contributed manure, wood chips for paths and other
needed items.
In spring of this year, the F2Cafeteria Program
blessed us with Chelsea Cates to do 5 hours a week of gardening work
through the coming year. The teachers involved in the garden nearly
fell on our knees and wept with joy as the weeding and bed preparation
has been the most challenging thing in sustaining the garden since our
garden angel left. Chelsea, like Josephine, will not be able to
keep our garden thriving on her own. We will continue to need support
from parent and community volunteers and donations toward materials,
tools, supplies.
Our thanks to all
who have gotten us this far and to those who join in the the joy of
creating this experience for our children.
An Afterthought
- A week after school was out for the summer, I was in the garden one
evening doing some unplanned weeding when the door to the elementary
school opened. Six- and seven-year-old children burst out running for
the garden, followed by their parents and teacher, Mathew Chasanoff.
The event was the releasing of the butterflies they had seen develop in
their classroom. The airy cage containing the butterflies waited in the
middle of the garden. The kids immediately knew where to look for the
ripe strawberries and snap peas and eagerly munched away as they
laughed, talked and frolicked. There was much rejoicing as the
butterflies fluttered to freedom in their natural world. I smiled and
thought, "THIS is what it's all about!"
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to Cafeteria Program!
A garden of any kind is a place to nourish the body and nourish the mind. The garden located on our K-12 campus is rapidly fulfilling even more...it is becoming an invaluable classroom for students of all ages in art, science, biology, architecture, agriculture, math, to name just a few. 
Our goal was to have an organic garden where
children could experience helping things grow, see and be a part of the
process, eat produce directly from the garden and prepared in the
classroom, have a more personal connection with their food and marvel at
the wonders of nature and the interdependence of living things.
Over the 7-8 years that Josephine helped with the garden, she did most
of the physical labor - prepping beds, bringing in and planting starts,
setting up trellises, weeding, advising on what to start and plant when,
cleaning out the winter mess and prepping beds again, while prodding
me, politely, to organize weeding parties, waterers, getting the
blackberries that grew over and through the fence lopped back, to plant
whatever it was time to plant.... I called her our "garden angel," and
the sight of her in the garden in her work clothes and baseball cap
always filled me with a huge sense of relief mixed with guilt. 
All of us who cared
about it - teachers, parents, farmers, gardeners - had very full
lives. For years now, I have thought each year could be the last year
of the garden. There just aren't enough people with enough time to keep
it going, but then it miraculously does another year.
I have always
taken the kindergartners to the garden to observe, draw and paint there,
find and try what is edible, harvest and make vegetable soup, pumpkin
pie in the fall and salad for our Appreciation Tea in the spring to
thank all who have helped us with our learning and growth over the
year. Garden experiences connected to our learning in math, reading and
writing, as well as science. We've learned about compost, explored
what is in different soils and why, sold extra produce, starts and seeds
at our "Farmers Market" stand outside of the elementary school, and
learned we love to eat raw kale, peppery nasturtium flowers and feathery
fennel leaves.
This past year has been the most rewarding
for me in seeing the involvement all children K-6 have had in the
garden, thanks to Mandy Randolph creating the Farm-to-Classroom
program. She has done a stunning job given that the concept just came
to her as school started this past year and she found she would have an
hour each week with each of the K-6 classes and no structure for that
hour. Mandy had begun to get involved and interested in the school
garden when she and I co-taught kindergarten the year before. With
support from the F2Cafeteria grant, committee and Bruce Orchid, Mandy
had the children cooking with local guest chefs, learning about their
food, making taste comparisons of fresh, local produce with that
purchased from farther away, harvesting, planting and weeding in the
garden and much more. What she has done in this one year is
astounding! We so hope that she, or someone, can continue with that
program.
In spring of this year, the F2Cafeteria Program
blessed us with Chelsea Cates to do 5 hours a week of gardening work
through the coming year. The teachers involved in the garden nearly
fell on our knees and wept with joy as the weeding and bed preparation
has been the most challenging thing in sustaining the garden since our
garden angel left.
Chelsea, like Josephine, will not be able to
keep our garden thriving on her own. We will continue to need support
from parent and community volunteers and donations toward materials,
tools, supplies.