Veazie kids visit community plot> Sixth-graders will help tend garden

BANGOR – Lauree Gott’s sixth-grade science class gathered Wednesday morning in the field behind Fire Station No. 5 on the Hogan Road. The Veazie Community School pupils kicked a dusting of snow off the still soft earth as they looked over the garden plot they will tend over the next three years.

The land actually belongs to the United Technology Center, the vocational and technical high school that serves 31 towns in and around Bangor. The school received a $1,500 grant from the Harvest Fund, a program of Maine Initiatives, to create an organic community garden.

Veazie pupils, students at UTC, Bangor firefighters, Bangor Garden Club members and other community members will work in the garden, according to Claire Ackroyd, the garden project coordinator and an adult education instructor at UTC. Ackroyd, who has a master’s degree in horticulture, owned and operated the Growing Concern in Orono for nearly two decades.

“Our vision for this garden is that it will be the important beginning of a much larger garden,” wrote Ackroyd in the grant application. “We believe the time is ripe to show people that sustainable, organic, local, safe food production, and environmentally sound, diverse landscaping are realistic, obtainable and easily learned.”

On Wednesday, Gott’s pupils dumped plastic bags full of leaves into the compost bins built by students in UTC’s building construction program. Students in culinary arts classes left food waste in the bins to mix with other compost materials before closing the kitchen for the holiday.

The sixth-graders took turns stomping down the leaves in the bin, before pacing off and measuring the site. Using their math skills, they were to calculate the square footage of the plot and estimate how many bags of lime will need to be added to the soil to balance its pH, or acidity, level. Ackroyd told the novice gardeners that they will need 120 pounds of lime per 1,000 square feet of soil.

Gott said she committed her school to the project so her pupils “can see that science is about real life and the world around them.

“I also like the idea that they will be able to get out of the classroom to work with people in the community,” the teacher said.

One of those community members is Gott’s 71-year-old mother, Joan Gott. A longtime gardener and retired teacher, she said she “uses gardening as therapy.” While she never had a garden while teaching in Old Town schools, Joan Gott said the project “will help the children learn where their food comes from and all the effort that goes into growing it.”

The next step, Ackroyd said, will be for the class to plot the garden and decide what they will plant where. In the spring, the pupils will start seedlings under grow lights in their classroom, then transplant them to the UTC plot. The goal, according to Ackroyd will be to choose plants that can be harvested early in the season as well as those that can be picked in the fall.

Ackroyd said the project would depend on firefighters, the garden club and community members to work on the garden during the crucial summer months when school will not be in session. Local businesses already have donated fencing, lime and rototilling, said Ackroyd, and a Maine seed company will fill the class’ seed order.

Strawberries, sunflowers, pumpkins, cucumbers and tomatoes are some of the vegetables pupils said they want to plant, tend and eat in what they insisted calling “our garden.” In addition to the physical labor they’ll have to invest in the garden, Ackroyd told them they will have to keep a garden diary to fulfill the grant requirements.

Justin Bergeron was undaunted by any of the tasks the garden project coordinator laid out. He already had set his goal before he stepped onto the plot Wednesday morning.

“I’m going to see if I can grow the biggest pumpkin in the world,” the 12-year-old announced, as the group left their garden for a quick tour of the fire station before heading back to class.

People wishing to donate organic material for the UTC garden compost or to work on the garden, can contact Ackroyd at 942-5296.