Lewes Elementary Student Highlights Importance of School Garden

Written by Corinne Wilkinson, Lewes Elementary 5th grader

Did you know that Lewes Elementary has a garden? The students take care of the garden; they grow and water the vegetables and they also harvest each vegetable. If you have ever gone to the playground with your friends and/or your kids, in the back there is a small garden with two rows.

We planted five different vegetables in the month of September. The first vegetable is Arugula. Arugula has Vitamins A, C and K. I like to call Arugula the ACK vegetable; it helps me remember arugula. The second plant is kale. You know that kale salad at Chick-fil-a? It can actually boost your eye and heart health. The next vegetable is collards. Collards have calcium–calcium is in your bones–which is really good for you. The fourth plant is turnips, they have 1-2 grams of protein and they also have fiber. And last but not least, is tatsoi. If you have never heard of tatsoi, tatsoi is a Japanese vegetable that helps with weight loss and reduces the risk of cancer.

We would research a vegetable in the garden and then make a poster about it, for example, the vegetable tatsoi. The poster would include fun facts and nutrition facts about the vegetable. Also, the poster would include how to grow the vegetable, when to plant it and harvesting the vegetables. Posters are hung between the garden and the playground.

We harvest all of the vegetables and then clean them. The first vegetable we will harvest is in four to six weeks and it is arugula (the ACK vegetable). A fun fact about harvesting kale is that you should harvest it early to prevent bitterness. When we harvest all of the vegetables we use them in our school cafeteria lunches! 

“I think it is so cool that we get to grow our own garden, and use the food we grew in the cafeteria,” said Corinne Wilkinson, fifth grader at Lewes Elementary. “More schools should let students grow their own vegetables that they eat at lunch time. Personally, growing a garden at school inspired me to grow my own garden, and made me enjoy gardening!”