Edible Garden Becomes a Reality at Romeoville High School

What has been a dream for the past three years will become a reality in the spring when Romeoville High School’s new edible vegetable garden will begin to take root near the southwest corner of the school.

Made possible by a pair of $5,000 grants from the Valley View School District 365 Nutrition Services Department and Lowe’s Toolbox, the new garden will not only provide vegetables for consumption in the RHS cafeteria, but it will also serve as a living classroom for RHS students.

“Everything our students can do with this garden falls right in line with the next generation science standards and Common Core,” said RHS Career and Technical Education Department Chair Rick Rujawitz.

Plans call for construction of the garden on the site of what was a little-used “learning garden” area. It will include up to a dozen raised and fully-mulched planting beds, paver bricks, several greenhouses (one of which was built by the RHS Geometry in Construction class), picnic tables, a fence and landscaping.

“We’ll grow peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, cabbage…just about anything and everything,” Rujawitz said. “We want to have a fresh crop in time for next school year.”

Always the entrepreneur, Rujawitz envisions plant and vegetable sales to the general public each spring and fall to help with ongoing costs for maintaining the garden.

“For three years we all kept saying it would be nice to have a garden like this,” he said. “Now we will have one.”