Preschoolers put their green thumbs to work
School seeks volunteers to construct fencing
Some local preschoolers celebrated their graduation recently with a pizza party.
And it wasn’t just any pizza party. Instead of ordering food from a restaurant, the students got to taste produce from their own garden, which they’d been cultivating for the past year.
Students at Head Start Preschool, which provides free childcare to low-income families in Asbury Park through state funding, maintained the garden for the past year. Teacher Jen Bagdanov said the gardening program started last fall after students went pumpkin-picking and decided to plant some of the seeds.
After planting pumpkins in the school’s yard, teachers realized the unused plot of land was perfect for a garden.
Two volunteers from Monmouth County Master Gardeners, Karen Poorvin and Cheryl Grant, aided the school with the planting. Monmouth County Master Gardeners is a volunteer group of plant-lovers who help service groups, schools, boy scouts, churches and other nonprofit organizations who want to start gardens.
With help from Poorvin and Grant, the teachers and students got rid of weeds, dug holes, laid out plant beds and used shells from the beach to separate crops before planting seeds.
While the master gardeners donated their time, some local stores also donated their products to help the school.
The school’s hose was stolen on a particularly hot day in June, which led one of the school’s teachers to ask WalMart to donate a replacement.
“Not only did they donate a hose, but they donated a whole garden full of plants,” Bagdanov said. “Pretty much everything— peppers, tomatoes, jalapeño peppers, herbs, squash, zucchini, pumpkin, petunias and marigolds.”
After this bounty of produce came in, parents, teachers, students and the master gardeners pitched in to add the plants to the garden.
Bagdanov’s class is now moving up to kindergarten, so the school hosted an end-of-the-year pizza party for them where they enjoyed the produce from their garden. Crusts were donated by Trader Joe’s in Shrewsbury.
Bagdanov’s incoming class will again be in the school for two years, and she hopes to continue the gardening lessons with them. She’s now looking for volunteers to help build fences and raised beds for the garden.
