Press Release for The Garden Project at Boxberry School

 

            Students at The Boxberry School are studying agriculture, planting and seed saving. Boxberry received a grant from Maine Community Foundation. The kids in the Periwinkle room (grades 3 through 5) are also making zines (mini magazines) to raise awareness and to give information about gardening. Emmett Grover is making a zine about seed saving. Sophie List is making one about biodiversity. Myles Barrett is making a zine about worm composting.

            All Boxberry students will be attending the Norway farmers market, behind Fare Share Co-op, every week on Thursdays starting on May 24^th.  They will be selling seeds and seedlings. Boxberry students will have a large selection of vegetable, herb and flower seedlings available at the market. The seed packets were hand-printed with linoleum blocks carved by students in grades 3 through 5. Boxberry bought a bulk order of several varieties of heirloom and unique seeds from Fedco Seed Company.  Students sorted and weighed out the seeds into their hand-printed packets. Students will also be selling batiked hand-made garden flags and garden prints.

            Boxberry students will plant some bean seeds and vegetable/flower seedlings at Carter’s Farm in Oxford. The plants will be harvested in late summer. Next fall students will use the techniques Scott Vlaun (of Moose Pond Arts & Ecology) showed them this past year for seed saving the vegetables and flowers they will harvest. Boxberry students plan on using these seeds for their garden project again next year.  Written by Sophie List (grade 5)

Garden After Dusk by Sophie L.

Warm air settles on my skin as I stroll toward the garden, the cool wet grass separating my toes.  The moonlight is turning my skin from gold to silver. My favorite noise, the amphibian chirping of peepers, rings out through the night like church bells on a Sunday morning.

Our silvery fenced garden (my second home) has neat rows with the kale I need for dinner. The dirt has a cleansing scent that is refreshing like an arctic shower.

As I unhitch the fence I mash the dirt between my silvery feet, the wind whistles and rustles through the leaves and the woodcock produces a "miae" sound!

The moonlight shimmers on my knife as I slice the stiff kale from the hands that hold it in the dirt. With my kale I amble back to the house.