At junior high, interest in gardening grows

The junior high food program has been going gangbusters again this year and the school is hoping the community will come and help spruce up the garden this Saturday.

This year the school, along with Ruder Elementary students, have been learning about gardening and healthy eating from Alekya Prathivadi a Food Corps Service member. Prathivadi hails from Chicago. Last week, she had students salvaging milk cartons so they could plant seeds in them for the Wildcat garden at the junior high.

The garden is the brainchild of school counselor Shari Johnson, who started it back in 2012. Today, the garden has a state experimental orchard as well as a host of vegetable plots. Looking for a hardy apple tree for your backyard? Johnson recommends the Frostbite variety.

Prathivadi teaches classes weekly at both schools, including courses on nutritional cooking. Earlier this year, junior high students had a competition to see who could make the healthiest smoothy.

At Ruder, kids last week were learning about the “three sisters” corns, beans and squash, which complement each other in a garden. Beans provide nitrogen, squash, with its prickly leaves provides protection from pests.

Now with the weather finally cooperating a bit, the work will turn outside and to the garden. Seedlings have been started indoors and in another month or so will be ready for the plots.

But there’s a lot of work to be done. Winter wasn’t kind to the garden. The walkway needs fixing, some trees have died and need to be pulled out and Johnson would like to build five or six more raised beds so families from the district could use them to grow vegetables.

Johnson said she’d also like to get a weed barrier down as well.

“The hope is to create a garden culture in this town,” she said.

Prathivadi recently was successful in getting a grant through the Donors Choose website so they could buy a food dehydrator to preserve some of the garden produce. Johnson said they’re also planning summer camps and hope to get an apple press to make cider from the garden’s apples.

Folks who want to help out at the garden should come with gloves be prepared to work from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.