Students are minding their peas and carrots in the new Learning Garden at Sturgeon Heights School.
Before the deluge of rain this week, the youngsters in this kindergarten to Grade 9 school could already see the first vegetables poking through the soil and had tasted their first green peppers.
“We had the first taste of peppers a week ago,” said Grade 7 student Stephanie Paches, 13.
Paches admitted to some gardening expertise because she also planted a vegetable garden with her father this year, but gardening with the whole school is a bit different.
“We were divided into 26 groups with a teacher as a leader. There were two students from each grade in every group,” Paches explained.
The vegetable garden is framed by raised flower planters, which the junior high students built together with principal Garnet Goertzen. The hope is that, as the children work together in the outdoor classroom setting, they will experience nature and at the same time get to know each other better. The little ones will get to know the older students in the school.
“The older students helped the young ones and we learned together,” Paches said.
Paches’ group planted the peppers as well as beans, peas and chocolate mint. Other groups planted pumpkins, potatoes and strawberries and even some perennials such as peonies.
The harvesting will be ongoing, even during the summer months because the children and leaders from Sigis Day Care within the school will tend the garden. Next fall the pumpkins might be harvested and used to decorate the school during Halloween.
“In summer we can also walk over, if we live nearby and pick the strawberries,” said Grade 8 student Kaitlynn Dietzmann, 14.
Dietzmann also enjoyed the communal experience of gardening on such a large scale.
“This year we had what they called cross-grades, which helped the older junior high students get to know the younger students. This was the most exciting gardening because we worked together and learned so much,” she said.
Still, building a garden plot in a schoolyard was laborious at times the girls said.
“I learned that it takes a really hard time to make a garden,” said Paches.
