Students at Washington Middle School in Jamestown have created a school garden with the help of teacher Lori Messina. Submitted photo

Washington Middle School students have created a flourishing school garden.

Teacher Lori Messina was given the Garden Club a few years ago and thought it would be great to get her students, and other classes involved too. The classes spent time revitalizing and rebuilding the school garden. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen events like school construction and COVID-19, the garden was unable to be cared for. This year, Janet Forbes reached out to Mrs. Messina and asked if she would start the Garden Club again.

“As we talked I remember all the beautiful and amazing things the garden brings to the kids and the kids bring to the garden,” Mrs. Messina said. “And how it brings all of us together. So we got started. It is always nice to watch the kids work in the garden and then experience the reward of fresh produce. The kids often see how the skills they use in the classroom can be useful in the real world/garden such as math and reading, as well hand-on skills.”

The students weeded, put down fresh dirt, grew plants from seeds, planted seedlings, mulched, watered and then began to paint and add designs for the wooden flowers and fencing with the help of technology teacher, Andrew Pihblad, and ENL teacher Cindy Spirit. Students also created the compost bins to help reduce waste at school and produce rich soil for the garden. They plan to expand on this project next school year. Clearwater Creek Compost by Sarah Moller helped support their efforts by demonstrating, speaking with students and letting them practice composting.