Expanded school gardens provide learning, dining lessons

The Stowe School Board toured the garden and sampled some carrots Monday.

Jeff Grogan, a Stowe Middle School science teacher, led the project.

Student volunteers planted, weeded, watered and harvested during their lunch breaks. Grogan and other teachers used the garden as an outdoor learning laboratory, where students developed hypotheses and logged the results of various agricultural practices.

For instance, students planted three rows of lettuce, using a different type of compost for each row. They’ll review data they collected to determine which compost yielded the best crop.

The Stowe Farm-to-School Program aims to make gardening part of the school curriculum from kindergarten through grade 12, while offering students more healthy choices about what they eat for lunch.

The garden provides a cornucopia of produce for the food program: kale, chard, lettuce, garlic, carrots, beans, onions, squash, potatoes, herbs and more.

The project received a boost from the Stowe Education Fund earlier this year. The fund paid for a drip irrigation system that kept the garden watered during summer vacation. It also paid for a greenhouse, which allowed students to start nearly all plants from seed, saving money.

Seventh-grader Bjorn Westervelt is one of the garden’s student volunteers.

“I like having the opportunity to see the food we grow go into the kitchen,” Westervelt said. “I like gardening, too.”

Grogan and his students have placed tarps over the cold-weather crops and expect to continue harvesting produce through Thanksgiving.