300 Geneva Grade Schoolers Hone Green Thumbs in Edible Schoolyard

The kindergartners worked with fourth-grade mentors to plant heirloom pumpkin seeds. Second graders planted heirloom gourd seeds. Fifth graders planted native perennial grasses. And all 300 K-5 students at Geneva’s Western Avenue School, 1500 S. Western Ave., got hands-on experience in cultivation at the school’s Planting Day recently.

Students filed out class-by-class at their appointed times, and after a brief lesson about the plants they’d be sowing, got to work.

The event took place in the school’s Edible Schoolyard, a project that has been steadily growing and taking shape since its inception almost three years ago. Last fall, the garden gained brick walkways that help define the planting areas. This spring volunteers built community planting beds, whose produce will be available to families who help maintain the garden.

A Green, Leafy Tunnel

Also newly installed this spring is a hoop house, donated by Great Impressions and Midwest Trading. Gourds that the students have planted along the base of the hoop house will grow up and over it, creating a green, leafy tunnel.

“Our Edible Schoolyard has already become such a resource for learning,” said Ron Zeman, principal of the school. “The first graders transplanted carrot seedlings they’d started indoors into the garden today to coincide with their science unit. Other grade levels will be planting root vegetables in the fall for the same purpose. There are countless opportunities to integrate the garden with the curriculum.”

The young gardeners at Western Avenue Elementary School may be pint-sized but their garden certainly is not. The roughly 3,200-square-foot garden, originally a dream of the school’s Get Up and Grow  Committee, features four large planting areas and a reading circle. Nearby are fruiting trees and shrubs.

Rallying Around a Garden

Donations by school families and several local businesses have enabled the garden to flourish.

Geneva resident Jay Womack, a landscape architect with WRD Environmental – who attended the school as a child – created and donated the landscape plan for the garden. He gave the fifth graders a brief lesson today about native plants before the students got busy planting them.

Paveloc donated 3,000 brick pavers for the project, which Great Impressions, a division of Sebert Landscaping, installed at a much-reduced cost. As well as sharing the cost of the hoop house with Midwest Trading, Great Impressions donated the heirloom seeds the students planted, along with construction of the hoop house and preparation of the planting beds. Midwest Groundcovers shared the cost of the native grasses it supplied.

“It’s so exciting to see what happens when everyone comes together on a project like this,” said Lisa Goewey, co-chair of the Get Up and Grow Committee. “Each year we build on what we did the year before. The enthusiasm grows, and the community support grows.”

Fall Harvest

In fall, the students will harvest their pumpkins and gourds, and sell them at the school’s third annual Pumpkin Festival to raise funds for the garden. Some of the gourds will be saved for future art projects.

“This project has really captured the imagination of our company,” said Kevin Moravick, a Geneva resident and branch manager for Great Impressions who provided mini-gardening lessons for the students. “By teaching children about where food comes from and introducing them to sustainability-minded concepts, it aligns with our green values – and as a result, we just want to get more involved and support it in any way we can.”

Support for the garden has also come in the form of a $4,000 Fit Kids grant from Kane County. The first moneys from that grant bought 15 fruit trees and a variety of berry bushes, a garden library and supplies.