Veggies in bloom around the school

The corn is growing, the pumpkins leaves are sprouting and the raspberry plants are in. While it may sound like an average backyard garden, this plot is on the east side of M.W. Savage Elementary School.

Planted by the school’s Garden Club members, the club extends beyond the typical “beautification” duties of a club by growing food for the first time this year.

A few years ago Michele Hertle, who is a volunteer at the school, started sprucing up the campus landscaping. She got her sons’ Boy Scout troop to help her once in a while, as well as the city. She dubbed the monthly meetings “The Beautification Project.”

“Through all of this, I started to realize the plants were not getting as much attention as needed and came up with a great learning opportunity,” she said.


M.W. Savage Garden Club: Michele Hertle (center)
explains what’s growing in the vegetable garden to
members of the M.W. Savage Elementary School
Garden Club, (from left) Garrett Miller, Chun-Kit Chow
and Zach Sullivan and Jack Sullivan.
Then Hertle got approval from Principal Jeremy Willey to transform part of the grounds into a vegetable garden
“The idea is if the kids can plant it and see it grow, maybe they’ll eat it,” she said.

That meant changing the monthly “beautification” meetings to a new club, “The Garden Club” which meets every week for about two hours.

Before some members came to plant sugar snap peas this week, Hertle shared some mature peas with the group so they could get a taste of what they were planting.

After the city tilled up the garden area, club members planted over 15 varieties of food plants.

One area features a “Three Sisters” garden: corn planted in a circle surrounded by beans that will grow up the stalks, completed with pumpkins in the center.

“If it works out right, it’s going to be really pretty,” Hertle said. “I’m really excited about it.”

Additionally, the corn and pumpkins will be natural decorations for the school come fall, she added.

With assistance from many eager helpers and many dirty hands and knees later, more rows were planted and weeds were pulled.

“This is so exciting,” Hertle kept telling the group.

When the group had gotten about as dirty as they could in the vegetable garden, they transplanted themselves to the school’s courtyard where they tended a butterfly garden.

While still trying to get weeds pulled, students were able to take a break and search for bugs and catch them in bug catchers to identify them.

“I want kinds to have an opportunity to dig in the dirt and learn and appreciate their environment,” Hertle said of the club’s variety of activities. “Being outside and in the garden is about more than the plants. It’s about the bugs and the animals and the learning.

“Being a member of the garden club doesn’t mean you’ve committed to coming every week, it means you have an interest and passion in gardening and want to see what you can do,” she added.