“During the past couple of years, the Marshall Learning Garden has been revived by dedicated parents, teachers and young gardeners. Classes have been heading out to the garden during the school day for mental and physical exercise such as planting, shoveling mulch, tasting fresh vegetables and herbs and planting a wildflower garden. It has been a community building experience and many families have come to volunteer on weekends. Currently, the Marshall PTA and volunteers are working on a project to build an outdoor classroom at the garden. It will be finished this spring and the community looks forward to celebrating with live music and fresh veggies in the garden!”
Jennifer Pisani Marshall Elementary Parent
"Our "kindergarden" began in 2008 during our first year teaching Kindergarten. We built some rustic garden beds with the thought of planting bulbs in the fall that would bloom in the spring. Little did we know that the deer really liked our tulips! Over the years, our little plot of land morphed into much more. With the help of former Team W parents, we applied and received grant money to build new raised garden beds with fencing. We began planting a variety of crops (lettuce, kale, spinach, snap peas, radishes, carrots, strawberries and herbs) that would sprout and be ready to sample before our little ones left for summer break in late June. We created an entire curriculum around our garden, including a unit on composting. Our students have learned to plant seeds, weed the beds, harvest the crops, and compost lunch/snack scraps over the last decade. It is amazing to see how excited our students get when it is time to get ready to garden each week!" Serena Watkinson, South Mountain School Parent
Tuscan 5th Grade Class Legacy Project
The fifth graders who graduated in June 2021 chose to create a small labyrinth garden at the edge of the Dell at the back of the school. A group of parents and kids spent time clearing the area and adding compost. I marked out the circular design with marking paint and then the group got to work - planting, watering, and laying mulch in the bed. We planted Purple Love Grass, a tough, native ornamental grass that has a wild, natural look. Barbara Bickart, who has been an artist in residence at Tuscan and runs Fire in the Belly Artmaking in Maplewood, was tasked with creating a collaborative art piece for the center of the labyrinth. All the 5th graders participated in adding clear crystals to the metal wire bowl Barbara made, so that it catches sunlight in a lovely way. Catherine Redd
Tuscan School Parent & Landscape Architect
The Tuscan Garden
The Tuscan Garden was started by me, Tracy Woods, Todd Hoehn, and Karen Tamir -- all Tuscan parents--in the spring of 2016. I served as the garden educator and created a planting schedule and curriculum, coordinating with the teachers and the administration to bring classes out to the garden.
We were challenged by having a small space that also doubled as the lawn for recess and outdoor PE. But we managed! We focused on spring crops, radishes, lettuces, kale, that we could plant and harvest while the kids were still in school. At the end of the spring, we would sprinkle wildflower seeds and plant native perennials to feed the bees over the summer and ensure that flowers were there to greet the kids when they returned to school in the fall.
Our fledgling program was interrupted by the pandemic and the Tuscan school construction, but new parents have taken the reins and worked to keep the garden program alive for the kids.
It was always a joy to watch kids come out to the garden. Their favorite activity was just digging in the dirt, turning over the soil to take out weeds and find bugs and worms. You could see them getting into the zone, resting their brains while exercising their bodies. Gardening is so tactile, and you could tell a lot of the kids really needed to have their hands in the soil to feel centered. It almost didn't matter what we grew, as long as they got to be part of the process. I loved being out in the garden watering/weeding after school and overhearing kids bragging to their parents about what they had planted as they were picked up from the blacktop.
Jennifer Vogel Bass, Former Tuscan Parent
Metal bowl in Tuscan Garden
Barbara made the wire bowl and the 5th graders all attached a crystal to it. And it was centered in the labyrinth garden. A bit of outdoor art at Tuscan!
Tuscan Girl Scouts planting bulbs
These photos are from December 2020. Girl Scout Troop #20700 (all Tuscan students) planted flower bulbs in the raised beds at Tuscan. Because students and teachers hadn’t been at the school in many months, our troop wanted to clean up these much-loved beds and plant some spring flowering bulbs.
Marshall Elementary Learning Garden:
“During the past couple of years, the Marshall Learning Garden has been revived by dedicated parents, teachers and young gardeners. Classes have been heading out to the garden during the school day for mental and physical exercise such as planting, shoveling mulch, tasting fresh vegetables and herbs and planting a wildflower garden. It has been a community building experience and many families have come to volunteer on weekends. Currently, the Marshall PTA and volunteers are working on a project to build an outdoor classroom at the garden. It will be finished this spring and the community looks forward to celebrating with live music and fresh veggies in the garden!” Jennifer Pisani, Marshall Parent
SMS Kindergarden
"Our "kindergarden" began in 2008 during our first year teaching Kindergarten. We built some rustic garden beds with the thought of planting bulbs in the fall that would bloom in the spring. Little did we know that the deer really liked our tulips! Over the years, our little plot of land morphed into much more. With the help of former Team W parents, we applied and received grant money to build new raised garden beds with fencing. We began planting a variety of crops (lettuce, kale, spinach, snap peas, radishes, carrots, strawberries and herbs) that would sprout and be ready to sample before our little ones left for summer break in late June. We created an entire curriculum around our garden, including a unit on composting. Our students have learned to plant seeds, weed the beds, harvest the crops, and compost lunch/snack scraps over the last decade. It is amazing to see how excited our students get when it is time to get ready to garden each week!" Serena Watkinson, South Mountain School
