Garden success
Master Gardeners help generate enthusiasm for gardening among teens
11:13 a.m., Feb. 21, 2012--When the Delaware School for the Deaf (DSD) put in a vegetable garden last November, the middle and high school students were responsible for building the raised beds and filling them with soil. It can be tough to get kids this age excited about anything, let alone physical labor, but University of Delaware Master Gardener Mary Ellen Hillegas says that the students plunged right into the task.
“I was amazed at how hard these kids worked,” recalls Hillegas. “A group of middle school boys, in particular, plugged away all day, carrying loads of soil in wheelbarrows. Everyone got caught up in the excitement of the project.”
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Getting “tweens” and teens enthusiastic about a garden – it sounds like the Delaware School for the Deaf garden already is a success, even though it hasn’t yet harvested a single radish or spinach leaf.
A partnership between UD Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners and the nonprofit Healthy Foods for Healthy Kids, the garden has multiple goals, ranging from social to academic. The Newark school, which serves deaf and hard of hearing youth statewide, recently moved into new quarters on Chestnut Hill Road. The vegetable garden is located in a courtyard that can be seen from a wall of windows in the adjacent cafeteria.
Like most school gardens, the project will be tied into grade-level curricula. Healthy Foods for Healthy Kids offers its partner schools gardening lessons that support state standards, says Thianda Manzara, executive director of the nonprofit, which has helped to establish 12 school gardens in New Castle County.
And DSD teachers and staff are already developing ideas on their own. “I’ve talked to teachers who are really interested in integrating the garden into the curriculum,” says Hillegas, a longtime employee at the school until her retirement in 2009. “One teacher plans to have his students find out if plants grown in the sun have better yields than plants in partial shade. Another teacher is going to focus on climate and geography by examining the reasons that we can’t grow vegetables year-round in Delaware.”
Grace Walker, an alternative placement teacher at DSD, notes that the garden presents new vocational options to the students. “It gives children an opportunity to see if this is something they would like to do after they leave DSD: own a garden or pursue career in agriculture,” says Walker.
Beyond that, she says that the garden can promote patience, respect for the Earth, culinary skills and healthy eating habits. “I hope some of our children will have a garden of their own,” she says. “It is a great hobby.”
Hillegas, who was a counselor at DSD, says the garden serves an important social function. “Ten to 12 students will be in the garden at any given time and they’ll need to come to consensus on planning tasks and sharing tools and other cooperative behavior,” she says. “The garden has tremendous possibilities as a teaching tool.”
Hillegas isn’t the only Master Gardener with prior ties to DSD. Her husband, Fred, worked at DSD as a student adviser. Lynn Hessler was an art teacher at the school. All three graduated in June from the Master Gardener training program. It was during those training sessions that the trio talked about starting a garden at the school.
But discussions about a Delaware School for the Deaf garden were already well underway, according to Carrie Murphy, UD Extension horticulture agent for New Castle County. “I was excited when I found out that these new Master Gardeners had worked at the school,” she says. “They bring a lot of experience, knowledge and enthusiasm to our partnership.”
Spring planting at DSD is scheduled for mid-March and will include radishes, lettuce, arugula, rainbow chard, spinach and other fast-growing, cool-season crops. Some of the vegetables will be used in DSD’s cafeteria. Although these veggies don’t sound as kid-friendly as corn, potatoes and other warm-season crops, Manzara says that research shows that kids who grow vegetables are more likely to eat what they’ve grown.
“I’ve had parents at other schools tell me that their kid begs them for radishes after trying the radishes from the school garden,” says Manzara.
Community garden workshop March 3
Murphy would like to see more Delaware schools and more Delaware communities start vegetable gardens.
Interested educators and community members are invited to a community garden and school garden information session on Saturday, March 3, from 9 a.m. to noon, at UD’s Townsend Hall in Newark.
Presented by UD, the Delaware Department of Agriculture, Delaware Center for Horticulture and Healthy Food for Healthy Kids, the session will provide participants with information to begin thinking about starting their own gardens – from a small, city neighborhood plot to a large school-based project.
The workshop costs $5. To register, contact Murphy at 831-2506 or cjmurphy@udel.edu
Article by Margo McDonough
Photo courtesy Healthy Foods for Healthy Kids
