One of the most important factors for the success of a
school garden might not be the square footage, the germination rate, or even
the expertise of a garden leader. I’m here to tell you that the most important
ingredient in creating a lasting school garden is interest.
I almost said excitement was the most important element, but
in my experience, excitement fades. It’s been great so far this semester to
talk to people at my school and in the community who are excited about having a
school garden project. However, the majority of those supporters haven’t made
it out to our garden workshops or contributed anything more than a kind word. I
am not ungrateful for that encouragement, especially on tough days. Realistically
though, it takes a village.
Here at Yellville-Summit, we have begun hosting volunteer
work parties. Our preparations for a winter garden simply kept getting pushed
back, especially when the weekend temperatures stayed in the 70’s into
November. It was easy to pretend that it would never turn cold, yet here I am,
during a week where the high hasn’t gotten to 40, and the temperature inside
our (unheated) greenhouse doesn’t go about freezing until after lunch.
It seems as though a completed greenhouse is our white
whale. We have had something greenhouse related on our to-do lists since my
first week on the job. We’ve relied a lot on the help of volunteers to make the
final push to finish. Pulling plastic proved our number one delicate and
challenging task. Pulling plastic involves taking a single sheet of plastic and
stretching it over the frame to form the roof of the greenhouse. You need a lot
of hands to do the actual pulling and attaching; you need a day with very
little wind, otherwise you’ll get picked up and blown to Missouri! I’ve been
told that at this time of year in the Ozarks, on nice clear days, the wind
comes up. On days that it isn’t windy, it’s probably raining or snowing.
We scheduled three days to pull plastic. The first day, we
cancelled because it was raining. The second day, we had about 12 people come
out to help; however, it was too windy
to, so we worked on the end walls instead. The final day, we had a small window
of time before the wind came up. We called on some high school volunteers to
come out after their lunch and a group of community volunteers who also came
after their lunch break. At long last, everything was secured, tightened, and fastened
against the wind and the cold weather.
These volunteer days, held over the weekend, and open to
parents, students, teachers, community members, and anyone who might want to
lend a hand, are really inspiring. Our aim is to make these work days fun,
informative, and productive. We build the day around a certain task to finish.
This past weekend, we needed to build raised beds inside of our greenhouse. We
started the day with a brief overview of season extension techniques and cold
weather crops. After squaring the ends of lots of cedar boards, we had a
mulching crew and a construction crew. After about an hour of work, I drifted
off toward the kitchen to prepare our edible rewards for the volunteers. We had
roasted root veggies and sautéed greens—eating both the tops and the bottoms of
many of the same plants. Turnips and beets, collards, carrots, rainbow chard,
and tatsoi.
As most of my projects tend to be, this was kind of a fly by
the seat of our pants endeavor. No matter how many times I measure and level my
cuts, one board will always be off. I’m not good at being precise. I’ve learned
to live with this, but working with new people is always interesting. We are
lucky enough to have quite a few people in the area with expertise in carpentry
and woodworking, in addition to farming and gardening. I’m generally the least
experienced person in the bunch. What I think is acceptably straight and what
the woodworker down the street thinks is quite different. I have learned to stand
back and let those more experienced take the lead. For example, this weekend I
provided a pile of local cedar planks, a workshop with tools, a draft of the
proposed greenhouse layout, and the instruction to do whatever he thought was
best to get it done. The project took longer than the two hours I had allotted
for it, but when I hand the reigns over the results can be pretty spectacular.
For me, the most surprising part of the day was who actually
showed up in support. Many of our ten volunteers had no connection to the
school or the project - most of them don’t work here or have kids in the
program. They simply heard about the garden workday and wanted to come help. They
aren’t just coming to bring their kids, or because a teacher told them about
the opportunity. I’m particularly excited about those volunteers. Those
volunteers are very likely to keep coming back and stay invested.
Our garden would not be as far along, as productive, or as
likely to continue into the future without the help of our volunteers.
by Sara Fulton-Koerbling
