Category: gardens

Donald Stewart Early Childhood Center

Elizabeth

September Garden Updates

September has brought new energy to our garden as we welcome many new students to our school! We’ve loved seeing students and teachers visiting the garden for the first time, eager to explore and learn about the plants growing there. This month, teachers and students will take turns caring for the garden, sharing responsibilities to nurture and maintain our growing plants. The teamwork and enthusiasm have been wonderful to witness!

Our garden continues to flourish with more tomatoes and eggplants ripening on the vines. We’re excited to watch this season’s harvest grow and to involve our new students in the hands-on experience of gardening.

Morris-Union Jointure Commission

New Providence

DLC Climate Resilient Garden

Our students are doing an amazing job maintaining the climate-resilient garden! They’ve been working hard, watering the plants and picking weeds to keep it thriving. The thyme smells incredible—it’s a little reminder of all their efforts.

Scotch Plains – Fanwood YMCA

Late Summer Surprises!

Look what we found! Purple eggplant, beautiful zinnias and our tomatillo plant is ready to harvest. Salsa anyone?!?!?!

School No. 4

Linden

Summer Gardening

Our students attending summertime programs at School No. 4 did a wonderful job of caring for the garden! We have seen zinnia flowers, strawberries, beans, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, peppers, and more!

Neighborhood House Association School

Plainfield

September Garden Photos

In September, the children are still enjoying the gardens.

Washington Elementary School

Roselle

More Flowers?

So, I’ve been thinking about the garden, wondering how effective it is for us to grow vegetables. I think we were hoping to share and enjoy the fruits of the garden, but the reality of the school schedule means that we are always gone for harvest time. I’m sure there was some amazing pink popcorn, Jersey Tomatoes, and fresh okra, but we weren’t here to eat it! I can see many of those vegetables that lived their lives, turned to seed, and fell to the ground, never being savored, pickled, or canned. That’s a shame.

We’ve started to wonder if maybe, we should be growing flowers?

More frequent harvests, more product, and the obvious tie-ins with gift giving and note writing to Moms are some of the benefits. Faster harvest times might give students easier ways to link work with results. I need to research harvest times and try to find plants that give flowers during the school year, but it might be a great direction to go in. Wish us luck!

Hanson Park Conservancy

Cranford

Volunteer harvesting our raised bed

Ryan Smith and other volunteers maintained our bed throughout the summer. Ryan gathered the produce and delivered to the local Cranford pantry, Cranford Family Cares.

Fanwood-Scotch Plains YMCA

FSPY Still Growing Strong!

Our square-foot garden is continuing to grow. We have begun to harvest our yellow tomatoes and zucchini squash. Members love them. Cucumbers are huge and our summer camp made several cucumber salads these past few weeks. Zinnias are so pretty!

Neighborhood House Association School

Plainfield

August Garden Pictures

Here are pictures of the gardens and the vegetables grown in August. The children are still excited about watering and picking the vegetables.

Donald Steward Center School No. 51

Elizabeth

August Garden Update

We’ve had a busy month in the garden, and all of our hard work is paying off! In August, our dedicated school team members celebrated the first harvest, observing the fruits of their labor.

The garden has been an amazing hands-on project this summer, and we’re so proud of the time and effort the team put in to nurture the plants. We can’t wait to share the harvest with our students when they return!