Kids can help, too! Kindergartener Eddie Cunningham digs our garden!

By Madie Murray

Mark your calendar!  On Saturday, March 3 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., anyone with a willing back and desire to help our school garden grow is invited to lend a hand.   You may have noticed that we are expanding our school garden in order to grow more food for the school’s Farm to Cafeteria Program and Farm to Classroom lessons.  This is a many-phased process with the first being setting the posts and fencing off the new area.

On March 3, we hope to set approximately 30 cedar fence posts and, if there’s time and enough people helping, wrap the whole area with new metal fencing.  We will also be forming new raised beds, spreading wood chips for paths and, if you like to dig, there is still more grass to be removed – virtually something for everyone!

Our heroic labor force will be well fed, courtesy of Geddes and his wood-fired pizza oven!   If you would like to help with this project, just show up and dig right in! The following tools would be helpful if you can bring them:  Post hole digger, long steel tamping bar, forks, hoes, mattocks, flat digging spades, shovels, bark forks (for wood chips), wheelbarrows, and extra work gloves.

Given that the new garden area will be a lot to maintain during the summer months when school is not in session (but when plants are growing the fastest) FoodMasters and the F.E.A.S.T. Program have offered to help maintain the expanded garden area over the long term through hands-on assistance and helping to rally community support.   For that, the Farm to Cafeteria Program is very grateful.