My gardening expertise depends heavily on folklore. Such as:
Plant your potatoes on Good Friday.
Don’t move flowers outside until after Mother’s Day.
Spread fertilizer when the lilacs bloom.
Some of it may be valid. Some of it, well, not so much. Nonetheless, I thought of such sayings over the weekend when the weather was beautiful and raking old, dead leaves from the backyard wasn’t satisfying.
Also, I had Ground Works’ newest project on my mind, one that requires a lot of collaboration. Last week, the Sioux Falls Parks Recreation Board approved the establishment of a teaching garden at the Mary Jo Wegner Arboretum.
The project will be announced officially Wednesday night at a fundraiser at Landscape Garden Center on Wednesday.
“Eighteen months ago we approached the Arboretum education committee with the broad idea of an arboretum teaching garden and demonstration center, which would allow space for (South Dakota State University) Extension, Ground Works and others to provide training to teachers, the community, educators and environmental educators in how we access that teaching garden as an outdoor classroom … and how we make this work at the actual school site,” says the Rev. Tim Olsen, Ground Works’ executive director.
The proposal was finetuned as it made its way through channels, and a teaching garden leadership team established itself, with representatives from Sioux Falls Parks Recreation, several Minnehaha County master gardeners, an elementary school teach, two representatives from Koch Hazard Architects and Lance Meyerink from Groundwater Inc.
It was Meyerink, a landscaper, who suggested that a rain water harvest system could be established, using precipitation collected on the raised-bed gardens. Koch Hazard agreed to make the teaching garden its office project, with employees taking afternoons to help.
“One of the most important things for us is how do we help our classroom teachers learn how to access the gardens and make it a useful tool for their gardens,” Olsen says.
That is particularly important because the number of schools hosting gardens is growing steadily. Chris Zdorovtsov a community development field specialist with Extenson, could not put a number on how many schools have gardens but says it is growing steadily.
Ground Works itself is working with two elementary schools in Sioux Falls, Lennox, Dell Rapids and Knollwood Heights in Rapid City.
“O’Gorman Junior High has something ready,” Zdorovtsov says. “Baltic is starting, Brookings is starting. As far as the total number, the list is big.”
Lessons learning in a teaching garden extend much further than people might expect, says Cindi Heidelberger Larson, Ground Works’ director of communication and marketing.
“We asked a music teacher, can you draw parallels to art or music, and he said, ‘Teamwork, and the listening and the leadership that has to take place in constructing this. There’s one basic sheet of instructions, and that’s it. You have to work together to solve the problem,'” Heidelberger Larson says.
This summer the teaching garden will start small, but organizers already are thinking big for future years. Spring is an appropriate time to dream those dreams. Spring also, as perennials emerge from the soil and trees leaf out, is an appropriate time to look to the future.
“It’s not just about growing gardens, it’s about planting sustainable hope,” Heidelberger Larson says. “It’s sustainable hope in the lives of students. We’re giving something back to the future.”
Reach Jill Callison at 331-2307 or jcalliso@argusleader.com.
If you go
WHAT:
Growing Hope 2014, presented by Ground Works, a grassroote community development nonprofit
WHEN:
6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday
WHERE:
Landscape Garden Center’s greenhouse, 7201 S. Minnesota Ave.
COST:
Free fundraising event for Ground Works and its network schools. Meal and program provided by Ground Works donors and sponsors.
ONLINE:
GroundWorksMidwest on Facebook
RESERVATIONS:
Call Cindy Heidelberger Larson at 275-9159 or 201-5549 or email gwgrowshope@gmail.com.
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