A Real Life Lesson in Agriculture

How do you teach children that food doesn’t actually grow in the grocery store?

You show them firsthand where it actually comes from by cultivating a garden, of course. And what better place for this real-life lesson than school itself?

Newtown Elementary School is gearing up for its second season of Veggieville – a 37-foot by 43-foot organic vegetable garden planted on the school’s grounds. Newtown Elementary School parents Kathy Skalish, Cheryl Gilmore, Rhonda Lichter, and Kim Burton founded the garden last year.

It was a success and they’re going at it again in 2011.

Gilmore said she initially was inspired to create a garden at the school after First Lady Michelle Obama began one on the White House grounds.

“I thought it would be such a fun experience for the kids to see where their food comes from because so many kids think their food grows in the grocery store,” Gilmore said.

Plus, the garden is a tool for developing healthy eating habits. “If kids grow their own veggies, they’ll be much more likely to eat them,” said Gilmore, who teaches children’s cooking classes for Newtown Township Parks and Recreation.

In her experience, “If they make it they’ll eat it.”

But, while Gilmore is an avid cook and interested in healthy eating, she didn't necessarily have a green thumb. “I didn’t know anything about this at all but I knew I could find people that did," she said.

She was right. Skalish, a Penn State Master Gardener, joined the effort “full force,” Gilmore said. Burton, also a gardener, and Lichter were behind it as well.

A core group of 15 to 20 parents are responsible for ensuring the success of the garden, with the help of other parents, teachers, students, and community members.

Local businesses helped out by donating plants, compost, and tools. Carousel Village in Wrightstown donated plants. Anthony’s in Buckingham shared soil and a wheelbarrow.

A breakfast fundraiser at Applebee’s generated $500 for the garden, which was used to buy necessities like stakes, buckets, and more.

“Soil was the most important thing,” Gilmore said she learned. “The soil has to be good. It has to be healthy soil to have anything grow.”

Then it was time to select the crops. “We thought, what would be fun for the kids?” Gilmore said. 

In the end, the garden had a variety of crops, including pumpkins, beans, tomatoes, herbs, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, sweet potatoes, and more. Flowering plants like marigolds and zinnias added decoration.

They even created a section of the plot for a “pizza garden” – a circular area with herbs, tomatoes, and other pizza ingredients. “Each slice had something growing that was either in the sauce of the pizza or on the pizza,” Gilmore said.

Even when school was out of session, members of the community stepped up to help out.

Last summer, area families signed up for a week at a time to share in the watering, weeding, and harvesting of the garden. Girl scout troops were instrumental in the upkeep, as well.

The garden hasn’t only been a learning experience for students, but a service project for the school as a whole. Harvested crops were donated to the Penndel Food Pantry, Philabundance, and even sold at the Wrightstown Farmers Market to generate funds for Veggieville.

Gilmore said she hopes to expand the use of the garden this year so it becomes an outdoor classroom for the students.

“The real goal of this is to have this be embraced by students and teachers and have it become part of the curriculum so it can be sort of an outdoor classroom,” she said.

For example, students could sketch in the garden for art class, write there during English, enjoy outdoor science projects, and learn about history of agriculture while surrounded by it, Gilmore said.

This year, the garden has even experienced some improvements. Raised beds and an irrigation system have been added to the garden thanks to local Eagle Scouts.

But there’s still more to do, Skalish said. There’s talk of expanding the garden, and eventually Veggieville may need its own tiller, she said. So the fundraising continues, this year with a t-shirt sale.  Anyone interested in supporting the garden through the purchase of a Veggieville t-shirt can contact Skalish at kskalish@verizon.net.

And on March 23, the cycle of planting, tending, and harvesting will begin again as peas – the first crop this year for Veggieville -- are put into the Earth.

Gilmore hopes this season will be as successful – and fun – as the last. And she hopes the children reap the same important lessons.

“It takes a lot of work to build something beautiful,” she said.