Petaluma’s Gardens
Ms. Nugent describes the gardens
The Culinary Garden
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This used to be all trees, and it’s a slope-y site, but the trees got a disease and needed to be pulled out. When the backhoe came and stirred up this wonderful soil, I said ‘UH, huh! We are going to put in herbs!’ I had a vision that I would look out one day at the backdoor of my classroom and see a beautiful culinary garden, and then look out the front door at a beautiful flower garden. Now, we have the garden right here, outside my room—just open my door and there it is! |
The garden is small but prolific—producing herbs, vegetables, strawberries, tomatoes, edible flowers, stone fruit and citrus. Its proximity creates a convenient indoor/outdoor classroom. Students can just step outside, clip some basil, pick tomatoes, or gather a few herbs.
Social Spaces for Students:
Look at this beautiful green out my back door and then look out my front door at this huge Rose Garden. This is the “Reading Garden” and is a companion to the “Cooking Garden”. The Reading Garden is primarily perennials and roses and it is a lovely space for students to gather and read, eat their lunch or socialize quietly.
The idea for this garden arose out of an excursion to the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center taken by Pat Kellgren, the Computer Technology coordinator and Ms. Nugent. Ms. Kellgren is a wonderful person for making community connections. When they came up with the idea for a Rose Reading Garden, she got a local company to donate 200 roses.
When they presented the idea to the principal, he jumped right on board. He has been a big supporter and was instrumental in establishing the special areas with benches. They are working on expanding it by putting in a patio and more benches.
These gardens are open to anyone, and students feel free to go and relax in the gardens during lunchtime. Ms Nugent also loves to give lessons in the gardens; the students take their notebooks out there if they are not working in the culinary garden.