Last February, New School-West built the Charity Garden on the side of the school with help from parents and an organization called Petal Patch Community. The produce we harvest is donated to the the West Side Food Bank in Santa Monica. With the first season ending, we have learned a lot about what grows best in this space and how to make the crop size more successful.
With the arrival of Fall, it’s time to start fall crops in the Charity Garden. In preparation, the children have been working hard harvesting the summer crops: clearing out old plants, tilling the soil and sowing seeds. It has taken several weeks of work to get the garden ready for the next batch of seeds.
Last Friday, Jacob Wexler (Hanami’s dad EW) came to work with Sam and a group of children to finish preparing the soil and plant seeds.
Maddox: “This soil is no good.”
Sam (teacher): “Why is that?”
Maddox: “It’s too hard. It won’t work for planting seeds. We need to dig it some more.”
After much work, the garden is all planted with beets, chard, spinach, radishes and much more. I am very excited to work with Jacob and the children to watch the growth process and see what interests the children develop in the garden.
Sam