By Toni Garrard Clay/Athens ISD Communications Specialist
The partnership between South Athens Elementary and the Henderson County Master Gardener Association is a winning one. In fact, the master gardeners have a plaque to prove it.
For the past five years, the school and the association’s members have teamed up to create a children’s garden at the elementary campus. The garden is used as a learning tool, a way to introduce children to a variety of vegetables, and a way to encourage healthier eating choices. The HC Master Gardeners submitted the South Athens Children’s Garden project in a statewide contest held by the Texas Master Gardener Association. The results just came in, and the county chapter was awarded first place among mid-sized groups for their “exemplary work” in 2013 with the children’s garden.
Master Gardeners Bill and Marie Hancock were at South Athens on Thursday teaching students a lesson on how compost is created and how it benefits the soil. Children also had an opportunity to pick the tomatoes and peppers (no hot varieties) that continue to grow from their spring planting.
“We really have three different gardens here,” explained Mr. Hancock just before the children arrived. “We have a vegetable garden, a flower garden in the tubs, and a butterfly garden.”
The vegetable garden, which is planted in the spring and fall, includes tomatoes, peppers, green beans, kale, broccoli, Swiss chard, snow peas, cabbage and cauliflower. The container garden includes purple heart, flowering garlic and onions, and candy lily. The butterfly garden is a dense growth of passionflower vines around a perimeter fence. The vines’ beautiful, exotic blooms attract the bright orange gulf fritillary butterfly, which lays its eggs on the vine. The eggs become caterpillars, a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis and, eventually, a butterfly emerges from the chrysalis. Students have been able to see this cycle unfold. And, as a bonus, they have watched a garden spider, spin and re-spin its web, produce an egg sack and — like the classic tale of “Charlotte’s Web” — disappear soon after.
Asked about their favorite parts of the garden, second- and first-graders covered the bases, offering with great enthusiasm: “The butterflies!” “The spider!” “The food!”
First-grade teacher Nikki Enoch said several of her students will pick tomatoes and eat them in the classroom. She has seen the garden make a positive difference in what her students eat at school. “I’ve seen it improve their choices at lunch,” she said. “If they’re introduced to new things, they may ask for it when they’re home or at the grocery store, too. I’ve had kids eat kale and say, ‘That’s not bad. That’s what salad tastes like?’”
South Athens was recently awarded $10,000 by the Seeds of Change Grant Program. The school plans to use those funds to add raised gardens, individual garden areas for classes, and build a gazebo as an outdoor learning center for students.
