School Garden Dedicated to 40-year Educator

Mrs. McGuire taught Language Arts and Reading for over 40 years and she also served as an assistant principal. She touched many lives in her work at St. Vincent de Paul School and Parish.

Nancy’s Learning Garden is a place that allows students the ability to learn how to prepare for a garden by composting, starting seeds, and mapping the location of plants. Students tend to their gardens all summer and early autumn by watering, weeding, and harvesting. Finally, they learn how to get a garden ready for winter, and then start all over again!

Students in Grades 2 and 3 are provided with the opportunity to learn about sustainable gardening. Students attend curriculum programs at Common Ground High School in New Haven to learn about soil, worm farming, and how plants grow and are used in food. The garden experience has been used to enhance the curriculum in many ways. Over these two years, students have studied plant growth, parts of the seeds, measured out square feet, and used the garden beds to find area. One favorite experience last year was the Great Salsa Debate. Students made their own salsa using tomatoes and peppers from our garden, and compared it to store bought salsa. They voted and found most students liked the homemade best. Students then used this as a writing prompt to write recipes, opinion statements, and some wrote a journal entry about the experiment.

The garden consists of three 4 foot by 8 foot raised beds, a 2 foot by 4 foot raised bed, and four half barrel pots. Students have grown tomatoes (cherry, plum, and regular), lettuce, snap peas, beans, corn, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, celery, strawberries, basil, dill, swiss chard, beets, radishes, and marigolds. Plants are often started in the classroom greenhouse, bought at the Mother’s Day plant sale, or donated by a local greenhouse. Students water, weed, and care for the plants. Over the summer, many students and their families, volunteer to come back to school and care for the garden. They get to pick anything that ripens during their week of care. It has been a great learning experience and students often take their expertise home and help their family garden.

Money was initially raised to start the garden when the students in the St. Vincent de Paul Gardening Club selling of painted flower pots and bird houses at the St. Vincent de Paul Christmas Fair. It has become a yearly event to help with the costs of the garden. Donations have been made by various school families and faculty to enhance the garden area. We look forward to many more years of productive gardening and having the whole school participate in the care and management of this area.