CHES Community Garden

 I am a parent volunteer who works with students at my son's (and soon my daughter's) elementary school in the school community garden.  My husband and I (and some parent/teacher volunteers) started the garden 3 years ago.  Our goal was to provide a space for nature exploration for the children and a chance for them to learn how to grow food and enjoy eating the food that they grow.  All of the children (about 360) plant seeds in the garden in the spring and then some children join me in the garden during recess time certain days to maintain the garden and taste what is growing.  Last year the art teacher collaborated with me and taught art classes outside and sent a few children to the garden at a time to plant seeds with me.  The kids LOVE the garden!  And it's amazing the foods they've come to enjoy.  We host "garden parties" in the cafeteria a couple of times a year (a spring salad party, and a fall harvest celebration). We're hoping to have more (weekly for the month of June?) salad in the cafeteria this spring and we're working with the nutrition director for the school district to get food from the garden directly into the school lunch program.  One of our hurdles is the growing season in the Northeast (we're in Ithaca, NY).  Currently we plant mainly lettuce (and peas) in the spring so we can mazimize the salad before the end of the school year (end of June).  At the end of June we plant other crops which can be enjoyed in the fall.  During the summer last year we also had a couple of "garden markets" where we sold some produce to raise money for the garden.