In the Garden

For my upcoming story on community gardens, I stopped by a couple of great school gardens in Scarsdale yesterday. Whew, it was ridiculously hot and humid.

For a few years now, Scarsdale has been way ahead of most other school districts in the Lower Hudson Valley when it comes to gardening and sustainability programs.

All seven schools in the district (five elementary plus the middle and high schools) have outdoor year-round vegetable gardens — and very active parent volunteers who help out in the classroom and then take over the gardens, with their families, in the summer. During the school year, many of the vegetables are served to students in the school cafeterias.

One of the most impressive gardens in the district is the 7,500-square-foot organic garden at Scarsdale High School, now in its third summer. It’s run by the student Garden Club with professional assistance from Russell Greenleaf and his crew at Greenleaf Gardens.

Here’s 8-year-old Alex Arovis, one of the summer volunteer gardeners in the high school garden.

Alex and his mom, Susan, and dad, Greg, and 5-year-old sister Gabriella have taken care of a giant bed in the high school garden for the last two summers. He’s a very impressive gardener — he knows the names of everything, including diseases and insect pests.

Some of what’s growing in his bed — sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, bok choy, tomatoes, cucumbers, nasturtiums, peppers, Swiss chard, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peas and edamame.

Zinnias:

This summer, produce from the garden has gone to the Ecumenical Food Pantry of White Plains, the YWCA of White Plains and the Jan Peek House, a homeless shelter and soup kitchen in Peekskill. A couple of beds of tomatoes:

Peppers:

Here are some of the folks at Greenleaf Gardens, including Larry Hershman on the right. It was brutal out there.

A very tall stand of Jerusalem artichokes:

I think this is a bed of yacon, also known as Peruvian ground apple and related to sunchokes.

Swiss chard:

Then Russell took me over to Heathcote Elementary, where we met the Suzman family. Here’s Russ, in the hat, with, from left, Jeremy, 6, and Evan, 13, and Abigail, 9.

And that’s their mom, Ruth Suzman, on the right. I forgot to get the name of the other woman who was working in the garden. They were on their way to see “The Lion King.”

Russ used his pocket knife to give us all samples of that little melon. Delicious.

Sweet little eggplants.

Ruth had just told me how Jeremy will eat raw vegetables, like broccoli, right out of the garden. On cue it seems, he took a bite out of a tomatillo.

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