By JULIE ALPAUGH – Staff Writer
In 2012 the Clarke Middle School garden was created through the initiative of parent David Berle and former agriculture science teacher Cheryl Hinson. It started as a plot of land in front of the school but over past years the front garden has expanded to four plots, and also includes a greenhouse.
In previous year no one was specifically in charge of the garden at Clarke Middle School but as of March of last year Wick Prichard, a volunteer gardener for Americorps Vista, has been able to dedicate his time to the garden.
“A lot of schools have school gardens but sometimes the teachers don’t have time for them because of the busy schedules, and sometimes the parents don’t have time to volunteer. So they figure the easiest way to do it would be to get a volunteer,” Prichard said, and that’s me so I’m here, i’m a paid volunteer but I’m a volunteer in service to America, its the domestic peace corps so I fight poverty by teaching children to garden.”
Prichard works with students doing a range of gardening activities.
“The typical, planting, weeding, harvesting, washing the harvest, we build things, we built the goat shed and we constructed sinks to wash the vegetables,” Prichard said.
On top of the gardening activities composting has become an important part of the garden as well that has even been able to provide soil for use in the garden.
“Then there’s composting in the lunch room, so everyday I stand beside the trash cans and I say hey don’t put that fruit in the trash can I’ll take that fruit’,” Prichard said.
The produce grown provides numerous opportunities including pickling and preserving, preparing meals for guests and volunteers or teachers, and serving in a garden bar in the cafeteria some Fridays.”
“We cook with (the produce) in (agriculture science) and in family consumer science in our food labs, like today they made kale chips in here,” Prichard said.
The garden has also become an important part of the family consumer science class where in class students are able to take what has been grown and use it to cook.
“A lot of what I do deals with hands on actually cooking food and eating food and were very fortunate here to have this amazing team of people who have got this garden here”, family and consumer science teacher Hope Zimmerman said.
The garden is not only affecting those taking the agriculture and family consumer science (FCS) class.
“It’s not at all just (agriculture) and FCS now. Just recently on Earth Day, all of sixth grade classes planted plants,” agriculture science teacher Debra Mitchell said.
Some students take away a sense of fulfillment from working in the garden.
“I feel accomplished about it because we actually grow it and eat it. It makes me feel so proud of myself,” Clarke Middle School student Emma Sharp said.
Students often don’t know where their food is coming from, and the garden provides an opportunity to know where and how something they are eating was grown.
“You know where it’s coming from so it’s not like it has been processed or grown with chemicals. It’s really organic and we don’t use any pesticides,” Clarke Middle School student Ava Adamson said.
The garden will transition into the summer with the Summer Kitchen Corps, where students can come work on the garden along with volunteers. It begins a week after school get out. Students come in Monday through Thursday at 8 a.m. and work in the garden. Then on Thursday they take what they have harvested and prepare a lunch for others.
“We’ve already started our tomato plants with these kids. We’re planting our tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and basil and so that’s going to transition. We are getting the garden kind of planted now,” Prichard said, In the summertime our student will take care of the garden continue to weed take care and water the harvest and then we will take all that harvest that’s being planted now and we will run our restaurant with it.
There are also hopes of expansion in the future.
“Were hoping that we can take this garden and then have a bigger garden, perhaps on one of the recreational fields that is underused,” Wick said. “We’re looking for a farm at school movement. Were looking at something where we can produce a lot of lettuce. Enough lettuce that our school cafeteria uses it in their salad, and that’s it.”
