The sun shines through the transparent panels of the greenhouse. Sweet and fresh scents of flowers roam in the air. Bright red tomatoes peek out from the green cucumbers, and the gentle breeze from the fans brings makes the leaves sway.
The gardening club works on many projects throughout the year, planting a variety of flowers and vegetables in the greenhouse in Southern Elementary.
English teacher and club co-adviser Amanda Burris notes that the club’s main activities allow students to recognize the work that goes into turning something small into something impactful.
“Learning just the basics of how to take something so small like a seed and actually grow food from it,” Burris said. “The appreciation that it takes to take seeds and actually grow something, grow food, and how much work goes into growing and producing food for people.”
The gardening club is open to anyone in grades nine through 12. Freshman Amber Childs appreciates the welcoming vibe of the club.
“It feels like a group of friends instead of just a whole bunch of students,” Childs said.
This group of friends enjoys growing all things green during the frigid months of the year. Burris feels the greenhouse has helped the club in their efforts to continue growing throughout the year.
“[The greenhouse is] great, especially this year because the winter has been so harsh,” Burris said. “It’s been nice that we’ve been able to actually continue growing food and get a good head start with the use of the greenhouse.”
Using the greenhouse, Burris remarks that the club can grow many edible plants.
“There’s at least one or two varieties of cucumbers, two varieties of tomatoes, we have then, three or four different hot pepper plants and multiple of those plants,” Burris said. “We have banana peppers, we have some hot ones, some jalapeños, plants like that.”
The club workers share their love of all things ”green” with the building community. Junior and club vice president Joy Manning recalls making bouquets of thanks for staff around Valentine’s Day.
“We got a bunch of different bouquets of separate kinds of wild flowers, and we spent a meeting just putting them together and organizing them into different vases,” Manning said. “It felt good to help appreciate people.”
Burris and the group have projects planned for the near future.
“Our next meeting, we’re actually planning on doing mini greenhouses with milk jugs and starting to sew some kale and lettuce mix and any of those kinds of leafy greens that kind of enjoy colder weather to germinate,” Burris said. “We are planning on doing seed bombs too, so lots of different gardening crafts that we’re hoping to continue spreading joy.”
