By: Sarah Winkelman
Colorful orange, red and purple flowers have spruced up the garden in the upper-grade courtyard of the Cranbury School.
The garden was started by retired teacher Pat Wood’s fifth-grade class during the 1999-2000 school year.
Since then, a vegetable and herb garden designed to teach students about their cultural heritage has become a blooming flower garden.
It is watered, weeded and taken care of by sixth- and seventh-grade students who are part of the school’s Science Club.
Ms. Wood continues to come to the school twice a week to help the children with the garden. She meets with them during their recess period, from 12:30 to 1 p.m.
Sometimes the children bring their lunch to the science room and eat while they work.
Last year Ms. Wood decided to plant a cultural heritage garden when her fifth-grade students were studying immigration in social studies. She applied for and received an environmental grant from Middlesex County to establish a vegetable and herb garden in the school’s upper-grade courtyard.
She then asked her students to get cultural recipes from their parents and tell her what herbs or vegetables they wanted to grow.
In the spring, when her class was studying Native American culture, they planted a 3 Sisters Garden. The 3 Sisters are beans, corn and squash. The seeds are planted together in the same hole. The 3 Sisters had been planted by traditional Native American gardeners in many different regions of North America.
Although different Native American people have adopted this traditional gardening technique, it originated with the Haudenosaunee, or "People of the long house." The traditional 3 Sisters garden forms an ecosystem which creates a beneficial relationship between the three plants each plant helps the others grow.
At the end of the 1999-2000 school year Ms. Wood worked with volunteer mothers to organize families to take care of the garden over the summer. The volunteers came to the school and watered and weeded the garden every week. They also harvested whatever vegetables were ripe.
Once the school year started the children took over the gardening responsibilities again. During the first week in October Ms. Wood returned to the school to help the children harvest the fall vegetables. They had grown 12 little pumpkins that the children decorated and sent to a nursing home.
Science teacher Frank Foulkes now works with the garden.
Ms. Wood said they are hoping to make the garden a permanent fixture at the school.
"We are looking to develop a garden with a butterfly and bird sanctuary. We really want to make this a nature sanctuary," she said.
Most of the plants in the garden are donated from local residents.
"We’ve been planting perennials and annuals. Most of the flowers we get are from town residents," she said.
Ms. Wood and Bridget Lundquist, a science teacher at the Cranbury School, have written another grant to Middlesex County for support for the environmental garden and bird and butterfly sanctuary. They will know in September whether or not they received the grant.
If they do not receive the grant, Ms. Wood, said they plan to hold fund-raising events.
Ms. Wood has been working regularly with sixth-graders Aram Sarkuni, Erin Hoerner and Kat Kehrt and seventh-grader Maureen Smith. Sixth- grader Dylan Zink and her mother Lee often help out as well.
Maureen, Erin and Kat hope to continue working on the garden over the summer. They are working with Ms. Wood to devise a watering and weeding schedule.
"I’m trying to teach the kids about organic growing, daylight requirements, and what plants work well together," said Ms. Wood.
The students are enthusiastic about the garden and the vegetables and flowers they have been growing.
Maureen, Erin, Kat and Ms. Wood labeled all the flowers and vegetables on Monday and planted a new bush that is supposed to attract butterflies. The bush is called a pincushion flower and blooms from May until the first frost.
The students got involved with the garden because they like being outdoors working in the garden and reaping what they sow.
"I knew people from softball who were working on the garden. They seemed to be having fun so I thought I would try it," said Maureen.
She plans to work on the garden next year and over the summer, if she has time.
"I like planting, gardening and flowers," Kat said. "It’s fun to work with the garden and I like being outside with all the pretty and different flowers."
She plans to work on the garden next year as well. She also wants to work on the garden this summer if she has time. She likes the flower section of the garden the best.
Erin worked on the cultural heritage and the 3 Sisters gardens last year with Ms. Wood when she was in fifth grade.
"I did it this year because I did it last year and it was fun," she said.
Sometimes she works on her family garden at home.
"I like everything in the garden," she said.
The garden has flowers such as marigolds, zinnias and geraniums. It also has, among other vegetables, lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, sweet basil, onions and pumpkins. The radishes are almost ready to be harvested.
Ms. Wood has invited the students to her house on Friday for a tour of her garden, lunch and a pool party. She plans to make a special lunch for the children using ingredients from the garden. She hopes to pick lettuce and radishes to use in a salad.
The garden group is always looking for donations of perennials or any type of flower, vegetable or herb. If anyone is thinning out their garden or transplanting they can donate flowers to the club to be planted in the garden. Plants may be dropped off at the Cranbury School, attention Mr. Foulkes.
