Spartan Garden

 

When the pandemic struck, we all returned to our root behaviors. Some hid in the house; some frolicked on the beach; some found new places to volunteer their time. I met a friend at the public library on the last day it was open and we decided to take on the school garden. A few days later, we wandered over to look at it. The garden had been well designed about five years ago, but it had not had consistent love and maintenance for several years. Different groups had planted veggies, or set up mason bee houses, or met on the circle of logs for class on a sunny morning, but it was haphazard. It felt, in some ways, that the last group just….left one day, planning to come back, but never did. There were condiments in the fridge in the shed, but the electricity was off. There were stakes scattered around, and hoses in various spots, like you would leave them to finish the job but had to go home for supper. And, because it was late March, the weeds were Growing and spreading everywhere.

We tackled the weeds first. Leslie worked in the beds and finished one before moving onto another project. I pulled two buckets of thistle every visit and then worked on the herb mound. We pruned out old raspberry canes and pulled out the asparagus ferns. We got into the tool shed, painted the door, and cleared that up one rainy day.  We move some strawberries. We identified the dreaded nut sedge, a new weed for both of us. Lush and green, it pulled easily, but left a small nodule behind to grow again. We nagged the school landscapers to mow around the garden and the planter strip in the neighborhood.  We quickly covered a third of the garden in some extra heavy black plastic, because there was no way we could get it all in order—that made a huge difference. Neighbors walked by to weigh in on things and we sent them home with strawberries and artichokes.

For the first month or so, we weeded and imagined how the school could use the space. It could become the center of the Sustainability class; we could supply the Foods classes with fresh produce; students could come out and draw the leaves and write about the scents of the herbs for English and Art class.  What should we plant? Would we be back in school this spring? Doubt it. This fall? In May, it seemed reasonable, so we planned to fall crops. We brought all of our extra tomatoes over to plant a rainbow of color and flavor.  I planted a few extra potatoes. Leslie started squashes, small pumpkins, and popcorn at home and planted them out. We filled another bed with sunflowers. We debated—the same crop throughout the bed? Or bed of random extra plants from our starts?   We did both.

By late June, it looked like a garden again. By late July, it was promising a good harvest in the fall, and we were still hopeful that students would be around, at least part time, to eat the tomatoes. There was football practice happening on the field and a group of sophomore boys helped us move the potting table out of the blackberries. Everywhere we looked, we could see progress. The paths were mulch. The grape vine was growing up the signposts. The apples were filling out. The herb mound was clear of thistle.

There will not be students in school this fall. We gathered in the garden yesterday to plan forward. We’ll take the tomatoes into the staff room and put out a donation jar and we may add some more of our own produce, because we need mulch and fertilizer, cover crop seeds and some potting soil for the spring. We nailed the timing—if school opened on Wednesday, we could have a tomato tasting on Thursday and the Foods class could make applesauce on Friday. That’s good to know for next year. And we are farmers and teachers—we have faith that the world will return to normal. Students and teachers will be back in the building. The lessons we have learned this spring in summer will inform our practices going forward.  We have hope. It is our root.