Students, town residents enjoyed harvest lunch featuring community-garden-grown produce
By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
WOODLAND — On Tuesday, the Woodland Community School hosted a Harvest Lunch serving up a delicious meal featuring vegetables from the Woodland Community Garden planted by the students in June.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Lunch still ripens in the Woodland Community Garden at the Woodland Community School, but pretty soon this winter squash will find itself on the plates of the school’s hungry students who never seem to have a problem finishing their vegetables. The squash plants were brought in by Simone Michaud. Other garden vegetables — onions, carrots, beets, tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, melons, zucchini and pumpkins — were donated by Noyes Flwer and Plant Shop.
“It’s a school community garden, and it’s part of working toward embracing the whole farm-to-school effort of having kids make the connection of how their food is grown and where it comes from, which has been an ongoing national push for school gardens and gardening,” explained School Union 122 School Health Coordinator Colette Thompson, who coordinated school/community gardens at the Woodland School as well as the New Sweden School.
Youths are notorious for not eating their vegetables, but anti-veggie sentiments haven’t been able to take root at the school; “kids love the vegetables from the garden,” said Woodland Food Services Manager Carrie Hewitt.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Krysta McLaughlin examined the roots of her cucumber before she planted it in the Woodland Community Garden.
Hewitt has been stocking the school’s salad bar with freshly-picked garden produce all fall, but school sewn vegetables dominated the menu on Tuesday during the school’s annual Community Harvest Lunch. Parents and community members started preparing the harvest feast on Monday as they peeled and prepped the garden veggies for a fresh lunch.
The Woodland Community Garden was planted in June when school was still in session; each student was given the opportunity to plant a piece of the garden during school hours and roughly once a week, parents and community members met to tend the garden and care for whatever took root.
“What’s nice is that the kids really like to come out to the garden,” Thompson said during the planning back in June. “Some of the kids are really connected to gardening and some kids are not; even though this is an agricultural area, some kids just don’t have that garden connection or they only know monocrops, and they like working with all the plants that make up the regular old vegetable garden.”
This was yet another successful garden for the Woodland School and with vegetables still ripening in the garden, the students will be reaping and eating the rewards of their labor for a while longer.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Woodland Community School first-graders lined up to receive their garden-fresh lunch on Tuesday; parents and community members got together on Monday to peel and prep the school grounds grown veggies. First-graders included, from left, Dominick Crouch, Gabbie Sutherland, Cassidy Page and Mackenzie Blackstone. Serving the students their nutritious lunch were, from left, School Union 122 Health Coordinator Colette Thompson, Ed Tech Barb Davis and Food Services Manager Carrie Hewitt.
Woodland first-grader Gabbie Sutherland enjoys lunch with her grandmother Shirley Sutherland during yesterday’s Harvest Community Lunch at the school, which was comprised of many vegetables grown in the community garden right next to the school.
Gary Sharp, David Tucker and Matthew McCormack carefully planted their vegetables.
Dylan Dodd, right, helped P.J. Thornton examine his plant in early June when the students of the Woodland Community School planted their community garden.
Macey Wakem plants a cucumber in the Woodland Community garden in early June.
