Willow Glen Resident

Education

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer

Spice It Up: Bagby Elementary School teacher April Wolfe uses gardening in her class. Second-graders (left) Sydney Norman and Fiona Webb plant oregano in the school's garden.

Watch Bagby school's garden grow, tomatoes and oregano all in a row

By Alicia Upano

Bagby Elementary School students share trowels and watering cans as they care for their newly planted seedlings in Bagby's first schoolwide garden.

"Will it grow?" asks a second-grader, referring to a nasturtium transplant.

"Yes," said parent volunteer Angie Horne, who has been instructing hundreds of students in the garden. "In the next few weeks, they will be grown flowers."

On May 22-23, every Bagby student had the opportunity to sow flowers, vegetables and herbs. Because the garden is small, the students paired up, selected a plant and buried its root mass into the raised beds.

A pair of second-grade girls selected a marigold. "I can water it a little, and then you water it a little," one student told the other.

This camaraderie is the kind of spirit that has brought the garden to life, Principal Kathy Kimpel said.

The project began as a seed nearly two years ago when Horne, a master gardener, partnered with first-grade teacher April Wolfe. Wolfe already used gardening as part of her class curriculum, with two raised beds outside her classroom door.

Horne was inspired to start the garden to get the students outdoors and to encourage them to become stewards of their environment, she said.

A group of teachers and parents formed a steering committee to develop a future garden. Then the idea took root.

Bagby's home and school club donated $20,000 to the project. The group also received a $2,000 grant from San Jose Beautiful. The Cambrian School District provided the decomposed granite for the garden's pathways. Southern Lumber matched 50 percent of all wood purchased to build the beds. Volunteers from the California Landscape Contractors Association helped build the garden on April 29.

"It's been a true example of a community garden," Kimpel said.

As the students watched the construction, their interest was piqued and they were anxious to fill the empty beds with greenery.

Although classes will end in mid-June, many of the plants will flourish with the help of volunteers over the warm summer months. The plants will bear boysenberries and tomatoes in an array of colors. The sunflowers will bloom, and the watermelons will ripen. Parent volunteer Donna Boss said she hopes family volunteers will donate time over the summer to oversee the watering and the production of crops. All the produce will be donated to the Second Harvest Food Bank, Boss said.

For teachers and parents, the garden is more than growing plants; it's giving children an investment in their school and their community.

"I've never met a kid who didn't enjoy it," Boss said. "It's supporting the community and thinking larger than just Bagby."