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(Oct 2): The garden faithful made their annual
pilgrimage to Belfast’s
Troy Howard Middle School Garden Project again this year, and despite
blight, raccoon damage and probably the worst gardening year in a
quarter century in Maine, they found plenty to inspire them there.
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| A border of annual flowers and herbs makes for an
eye-catching garden. (Photo by Jean English |
Teacher Jon Thurston pointed out one way to make a garden look
good, no matter what: Turn students loose along the edge of the plot
with an abundance of flower seeds. Everyone approaching the garden in
mid-September was awed by that border of color glowing from sunflowers,
zinnias, morning glories and other annuals.
Not that the veggie
plots behind the border were lacking in any way, except, of course, the
tomatoes — but whose weren’t this year? Sturdy A-frame trellises
supported cucumbers that were started under covered hoops alongside the
trellises early in the season. Green beans also grew in a space-saving
way — up a cage made from concrete reinforcing wire, usually used to
hold a tomato plant, but equally great for beans. A roll of this
6-inch-square wire mesh is useful throughout the garden, for cages, low
covered tunnels to protect crops from frost, trellises and more.
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| The Garden Project. (Photo by Jean English) |
Fat onions grew in leaf-mold-amended soil. A colorful
arrangement of green and red lettuce looked like an impressionist
painting. Globe artichokes begged for butter. Even in a bad Maine
gardening year, the green thumbs at Troy Howard were able to produce
artichokes!
One area was planted to oats, which will crowd
out weeds during the growing season, die to the ground after a frost,
provide a soil-protecting mulch over winter and a ready-to-plant spot
in spring.
This was the year of the gourd at Troy Howard. A
hut made from saplings supported numerous gourd vines, with fruits
suspended inside the structure.
Elsewhere gourds were growing
inside molds, thanks to The Gourd Project developed by University of
Maine art professor Susan Camp (umaine.edu/art/faculty.htm#camp). Camp,
using a Public Sculpture Grant from the Maine Arts Commission and the
Harry Faust Art Fund, created two-piece molds in the shapes of
freshwater bio-indicators (frogs and brook trout), which are sensitive
to many agricultural pesticides. The students, under the direction of
Thurston, set small gourds in the molds, secured the two parts of the
molds together with wire, and let the gourds grow into the shapes
inside the molds.
They were amazed at the power of this growth. Some gourds even broke
the molds as they grew.
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 A cage made from concrete
reinforcing wire supports beans.
(Photo by Jean English)
“The resulting forms are not perfect casts, since
the gourds
impose their own will as they fill out the molds,” said Camp. Much like
nature …
The gourds were still growing in September. They’ll
be harvested this fall and dried over the winter, to be displayed in
the garden next summer — just one reason for a repeat pilgrimage to
Troy Howard next year.
The only thing missing from The Garden
Project this year was teacher Steve Tanguay, who resigned in August.
Tanguay spent almost 30 years teaching, including the last eight years
with the award-winning Troy Howard Garden Project, where he broke many
stale teaching molds to foster highly effective hands-on learning among
his inspired students. These kids ran with the Garden Project, learned
about history through heirloom crops, about math through farming, about
business and economics through the project’s amazing entrepreneurial
activities, and more.
For more about the Garden
Project, including some techniques you might try in your own garden
(such as a potato tower), visit schoolgardenproject.com/gstand.html.
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Molded gourds and
much more at
Troy Howard Middle School garden