By Khalida Sarwari
Where once weeds grew and litter filled the garden at Castlemont Elementary School, there now exists a space filled with flowers, ornamentals, organic vegetables and–just in time for Halloween–a pumpkin patch. The garden has come a long way, but it’s still got quite a way to go.
Over the summer, the Castlemont garden underwent a massive renovation that included the installation of the pumpkin patch, a 30-foot flowerbed spelling out the school’s name and a reading corner, an intimate space made up of tree logs designed as a meeting area for classrooms.
The renovation was a result of about $7,000 in grant money that garden coordinator Howard Rappaport applied for last winter, including a $5,000 grant from the Lowe’s Foundation and a Whole Kids Foundation grant for $2,000.
Rappaport, whose daughter and son attend the school, has been hard at work on the garden for the last three years. His vision is to have teachers incorporate the garden, which is about three-quarters of an acre in size, into their curriculum, whether that be in the area of mathematics, science or even language arts.
“We’re working on curriculum, catering it so that it works easily for teachers and is an extension of what they’re already doing in the classroom,” Rappaport said. “We want to spark the creativity and imagination of every child.”
Adjacent to the garden off Barkwood Avenue, there was a community garden in the 1980s with about 25 raised beds where students did their gardening, according to Rappaport. When the school was renovated in the early 2000s, the garden was relocated to the Castlemont campus where the portables once sat. A remodeled and expanded garden was opened in 2006.
The garden now has 34 raised vegetable beds that include eggplant, kale and green beans, as well as a multitude of flowers, from snapdragons to Icelandic poppies.
Rappaport’s daughter, Charlotte, helped plant the kale bed, along with cucumbers, watermelons and tomatoes.
“It’s fun to see all the seeds, watching them grow and watering them,” the second-grader said at a Sept. 28 open house held to showcase the garden to the public.
For now, the students are using the vegetables to put together gift baskets as a way of welcoming their teachers and members of the parent teacher association back to school, but someday Rappaport hopes the students can use the vegetables for cooking in the classroom or even have the school cafeteria incorporate the produce in their lunch offerings. And beyond that, the garden may one day serve the needy, Rappaport said.
“We want to help the needy people in our community, feed the hungry,” he said.
Castlemont students show how their garden grows at open house
