In the Garden

In the past couple of years, we’ve seen a slew of community gardens pop up all over Westchester. These public growing spaces are gifts to the greater community. They give people who don’t have the space at home a chance to grow food for their families and learn the ins and outs — and joys — of gardening.

And though communal, these gardens offer quiet, thoughtful sanctuaries away from all the gadgets that run our lives.

They’re old-fashioned places where we can get our hands dirty alongside our neighbors and feel good about the tasks at hand.

But Scarsdale takes the concept one step further, adding yet another dimension to this popular gardening trend: education. In fact, you might say education — not gardening — is the focus of these plots, which depend on faculty members and Scarsdale students to thrive.

Scarsdale’s community gardens are on school property, and they’ve been incorporated (very attractively, by the way) not just into the grounds, but also into curriculums and cafeterias. That way, the students — and their families — learn about the benefits of good fresh food, environmental sustainability and ways in which public land can be turned into productive spaces for the greater community.

All seven schools in the Scarsdale 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, then take over the gardens, often with their families, in the summer. During the school year, many of the vegetables are served to students in the school cafeterias.

“We’ve always had a very active corps of parents interested in learning outside the classroom,” says Susanne Jones, who helped start a butterfly garden at Fox Meadow Elementary School seven years ago.

Most of the schools have some sort of end-of-year harvest festival with garden-grown food, including salads and hot foods such as potato leek soup and eggplant parmigiana.

“It’s so inspiring to see the children when they harvest vegetables — they eat them as if they were candy,” says Jennifer Rossano, co-chairwoman of the garden at Quaker Ridge Elementary School.

(Rossano in the garden at Scarsdale High School; photos by Xavier Mascareñas.)

She helped organize a weekly summer schedule for volunteers to run the garden.

In 2005, the district hired Russell Greenleaf and his nonprofit company, Greenleaf Gardens, to help develop the school gardens and come up with a plan for sustainability education. He’s been working with students and teachers — in the classroom and in the gardens — ever since.

(Greenleaf at the high school; and with Rossano)

“The garden is a great teaching platform,” Greenleaf says. “We’re not training the kids to be gardeners — we’re training them to be community members.”

And giving ones at that. One of the most impressive gardens in the district is the 7,500-square-foot organic garden at Scarsdale High School (1057 Post Road), now ending its third summer. Run by the student Garden Club, with assistance from Greenleaf and his crew, the garden grew 1,200 pounds of produce for the Food Bank for Westchester last year. This summer, produce from the garden went 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.

During the school year, high school art classes stop at the garden to draw, physics classes take measurements, English classes write about what’s growing and the International Club makes frequent visits.

Of course, if you really want to know what the students, teachers and volunteers get out of the experience, you have to ask them. That’s what we did, and here the gardeners speak for themselves.

Biagio DiSalvo, senior and Garden Club president at Scarsdale High School

Why I’m here: “It’s relaxing here — that’s why I do it. It’s a good stress reliever.” Over the summer he came to the garden Mondays and Thursdays — “We’ve been weeding, designing new beds, planting and harvesting what we’re able to.” During the school year, he and other members of the Garden Club work in the beds from 2 to 4 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays.

Learning curve: “I know what I’m doing — I read a lot.” He’s also written two articles on mushrooms for the Scarsdale Inquirer, a local weekly.

Maggie Favretti, faculty adviser for the Garden Club, adds: “He’s at a level where he’s teaching me, and I grew up with two horticulturists as parents.”

What we’re growing: Roma and cherry tomatoes (“the best, so sweet”), yacon (an ancient Incan crop), French cantaloupes, two beds of lettuce, strawberries, peppers, eggplant, garlic, onions, peas (“all along the fence — we got bags and bags of them in the spring,” he says) echinacea, carnations (“we just like growing them”), Italian green beans and a huge and very tall stand of Jerusalem artichokes (“I don’t really like them — they take up a lot of room and just kind of sit there all summer”).

In his home garden this summer, DiSalvo grew “mostly tomatoes, eggplant and a lot of herbs — mint, basil, oregano, chamomile, thyme and rosemary.”

Next year: “We’ll get together to make plans in the fall, after the season, to see what we have room for,” DiSalvo says.

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Alex Arovis, third-grader at Fox Meadow School and a volunteer gardener

Why I’m here: “I like being able to eat the things we grow,” says Alex, who, along with his mom, Susan, his dad, Greg, and 5-year-old sister, Gabriella, have taken care of a giant bed in the high school garden the past two summers.

And with his mom and sister:

Gabriella:

“Alex is a real hard worker,” his mom adds. “He’s out here as much as any of the adults.”

Learning curve: Alex picked up most of his gardening skills from his dad. Last year, they kept color-coded charts and graphs of exactly how much of every vegetable they harvested, along with problems, such as late blight, powdery mildew, spotted cucumber beetles, white flies and squash borers.

“We’ve all learned so much here, especially from Russell (Greenleaf),” Susan says. In winter, the family spends time poring through garden catalogs.

What I’m growing: Sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, bok choy, tomatoes, cucumbers (“they grew like crazy this year,” says Alex), nasturtiums, peppers, Swiss chard, broccoli, cauliflower (“it’s late and we haven’t had any yet,” he says), carrots, peas and edamame (400 in one week).

Next year: More cucumbers, edamame and carrots.  “My dad says we should grow things we really like.” And that might mean watermelon and pumpkins, too.

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Maggie Favretti, social studies teacher and faculty adviser for Scarsdale High School Garden Club

Why I’m here: “We’d love to see the garden used even more,” she says. Some schools are exploring the notion of giving physical education credits to student gardeners. “It’s hard work out here!”
She would also like to figure out ways to get produce from the garden directly into the hands of the needy as soon it’s picked.

Learning curve: “All my life I’ve been involved in sustainable agricultural practices in one way or another,” she says. Her father is a landscape architect and her mother is a botanist. She works in the garden with students at the high school about four hours a week.

Next year: “We have a lot of ideas — the garden needs to become an institution first.”

Information: For more on the Scarsdale school gardens and how village residents can get involved, visit www.scarsdaleschools.org or www.green­leafgardens.org, or call Greenleaf Gardens at 914-886-3559.

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