Though school is out for the summer, the student gardens at Evergreen Elementary are just getting started and need tending.
Fifth-grade teacher Holly Padilla acknowledged that the growing season doesn’t necessarily fit the school calendar.
She says, “We can get started in the spring with our classes, and they do the harvest in the fall, but there’s a long summer stretch without much student participation. I’d love to find a couple of community champions.”
The gardens have a long history at the school, starting in the late 1990s as the Evergreen Agricultural Testing Site, or EATS, relying on community support and business donations. Over the years, primary oversight has passed to the greenest thumbs among teachers and staff.
Each class will get a particular part of the harvest to use in making a dish for an open house in the fall. Current plantings include strawberries, squash, tomatoes, zucchini, melons, green beans, peppers, basil, beets, potatoes, romaine lettuce, chives, garlic, rhubarb, radishes, carrots and celery.
There is also a range of flowers.
