Over the past several years, including during the pandemic, the Middle School garden has been growing and getting more beautiful and productive. The Owl is frequently around the High School and Middle School campus while waiting for Owlet athetic practices to end and always walks by the garden which is in a sunny spot right next to the Middle School pool. Planter boxes are quiet in the late fall and winter and then suddenly (or so it seems–I recognize there is a lot of hard work) they spring into life with tomatoes and herbs and other produce.

Last Saturday morning, the Owl made a special call on the Middle School Garden Club when in search of stakes to help rope off an area where a snapping turtle unfortunately decided to make her nest right in a high-traffic zone. Fortunately, and unsurprisingly, there was Principal John Gibbons working in the garden with an eight-student crew plus Susannah Philips, a Middle School substitute teacher who will join as a middle school math teacher full-time in the fall. John immediately donated a couple of stakes to the cause and a fourth-grade farmer walked back with me to help stake out the snapper nest.

Returning to the garden area where students and teachers were digging and weeding and placing vegetable signs, you can’t help but be impressed. The lettuce was being harvested later in the morning, and was just crazy happy brilliant green. One of the benefits of being in the garden club is eating the results of your hard labor–oil and vinegar was being secured as John and I spoke. The lettuce not eaten by club members was provided to middle school lunches yesterday.

The Weston Middle School Garden Club has been actively preparing the garden since March.  The club is composed of an enthusiastic group of students who dedicate one hour of their time after school each week, two hours each Saturday morning, and hours of work over the summer.  This year the crops will include potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, kale, beets, radishes, beans, herbs, blackberries, and hopefully peaches (the deer love them too so who will get there first?)    

“The garden club has made incredible progress over the past 4 years with very generous grants from WEEFC helping us to build our own planter boxes, purchase tools, supplies, plants, seeds, and soil,” said John Gibbons. “We’ve also gotten donations of tools and supplies like shovels and rakes. And we have a truly remarkable group of students and a couple of parents who reliably show up every week to get the work done.”

The Middle School Garden Club accepts donations on an open basis. If you have any questions or would like to donate items or even get involved as a parent or student, please email John at gibbonsj@weston.org. Summer help is always welcome since Weston turns into a ghost town.

Go ‘cats!