Budding gardeners learn a lesson about plants

Anne Nagro isn't one to turn away a tomato plant.

What about 80 to the garden at Woodland Elementary West School in Gages Lake. tomato plants -- all presented by smiling second-grade students?

Hey, the more the merrier is her motto when it comes

Of course, 40 or 50 sprawling pumpkin plants might be a logistical nightmare, but that's a prob-lem for a future day.

At the moment, she's focusing on getting 400 second-graders -- each with a tomato or other plant in hand -- through the school's vegetable garden to plunk their treasures in the soil. Over two days this month, the school's garden will come to life.

By the end of the season, if it's anything like last year, they'll have delivered more than 450 pounds of fresh vegetables to the Warren Township Food Pantry, one of the Giving Garden drop-off sites.

This is the fourth year students, families and teachers at the school have worked together to make learning beneficial to more than just those inside the school's walls. The teachers work with students to incorporate science lessons on germinating and ecology as part of their budding gardening skills.

Parents help keep the effort going over the summer when school's not in session, and clients at the food pantry are recipients of the school's generosity.

It's all part of the overarching Daily Herald Giving Garden program, an effort that involves gardeners planting a little extra, or taking their surplus, to food pan-tries around the suburbs where it's distributed to neighbors in need. And it's about time to start thinking of what you plan to grow this year!

The campaign for 2007 will begin its collection July 1.

Students at the Gages Lake school started their seedlings in April and have diligently cared for them since then, Nagro said. She initially got involved when the project started because her own second-grade child was doing some planting. As an avid gardener herself, it seemed a logical place to volunteer.

Even she's joined in the educa-tional process.

"We've learned that grass clippings are invaluable -- we spread them everywhere," she said.

Fresh clippings squash new weeds. And that's a ringing endorse-ment.

"Do you know what's it's like to weed a 150-by-40-foot garden?" Nagro asked with just a hint of desperation in her voice.

By the end of the season, thanks to all those clippings, the garden is full of nutrients that volunteers then till right back into the soil for the next year. Maybe that 450-pound expectation is a little too low. After all, they've got all that wonderful compost from last year to consider.

And 40 or 50 pumpkin plants. ready and waiting for their turn in the sun.