How Our School Garden Grows More Than Food

Fourteen months ago, another mom at my kids’ school cornered me at a party and asked if I would chair the garden committee. At that moment, I had no idea having a school garden was going to become important to me and admittedly, I only wanted to know if I could pretend I didn’t hear her and quickly hide in the bathroom.

Our PTO has a secret ops unit of mommy recruiters. They look and act like you and me, but in reality they are soldiers who have taken a blood oath to enlist any able-bodied parent they can to fight for their cause. They come at you with wide smiles and quick tongues. They flatter you, and you think you’re having a nice chat with a sweet mom. The next thing you know, you’ve agreed to run the health fair.

As fate would have it, I couldn’t excuse myself fast enough. Instead, I smiled and said ‘yes,’ even though I was cringing inside. I excused myself and made a B-line to the nearest friend and told her what had happened. Then I begged her to help. After a few minutes of listening to me wallow, she agreed. What did I know about setting up a school garden? Not much.

We recruited more moms with the promise of chocolate and wine at committee meetings. Then we joined Slow Food Denver’s Seed-to-Table program. Seed-to-Table connected us with other school gardens so we could see what they were doing. We spent about a month gathering information and developing a plan. Our principal vetoed our elaborate plan in favor of a more simple one.; we were so relieved that we left the meeting feeling giddy.

Last May, with the help of fifth graders, we planted beets, tomatoes, squash, green peppers, corn, tomatillos, and sunflowers. Over the summer, families pitched in and took turns tending the garden. My kids asked if we could go to the garden daily. We brought home bags of yellow squash and green peppers, and for once they didn’t complain about eating veggies.

I found myself talking about the garden a lot. Surely everyone was as interested in the benefits as I was. I said things in casual conversation like: a garden is an interactive place for interdisciplinary learning; kids become detectives and engage the garden with all five senses; learning feels like a party when your class harvests tomatoes and makes salsa.

I eventually got over myself and began to observe how people were using the garden. I noticed something unexpected: our garden is a place where kids, parents, teachers, even the bus drivers, hang out and talk to one another. As humans, we’re wired to seek connection with one another and  it’s vital for us to have real face-to-face encounters.

Our school garden gives us a gathering place where we can do that. And we’re never at a loss for words because we can talk about the sunflowers, how their heads bob in the breeze, or the two-foot zucchini that someone forgot to pick, or the first frost.  

If Kristin isn’t working or running her two rascally but cute kids to ballet and hockey, she’s most likely writing in her office that doubles as a laundry room (why waste time). She blogs as Plain Spoken Mama at https://plainspokenmama.wordpress.com/. If she’s not writing, she’s cooking, reading, exercising (hopefully outside), and debating whether or not to get a dog.

Author: Mile High Mamas