Club Corner- Garden Club
Arroyo’s Garden Club continues their hard work after two years since the club was founded.
November 16, 2016
Starting back two years ago, Arroyo’s Garden Club began in journalism. While working with KCET, journalism was picking community projects. The class was divided into two groups and one of the groups wanted to redo the garden. The garden used to be at Arroyo, but it stopped after the teacher who was running it, left.
Savana Lam, Mabel Troung, Tiffany Duong, Stephanie Tang and Brianna Martinez pose with adviser Ms. Jennifer Swanson for a picture before they start their long day of gardening.
Ever since the restart of the Garden Club, it has been very successful. Ms. Jennifer Swanson, who is in charge of the Garden Club, has been very pleased and is excited about the results of the garden.
Ms. Swanson proudly states, “It really will unite the whole school because it is exciting what they are doing back there.”
The club has big plans for this year. This fall and winter the club has planted kale, tomatoes, fennel, basil, sweet peas, carrots, and cilantro. Last spring and summer, the club planted cantaloupe melons, tomatoes, and basil. In the month of January, the club will be planting trees, putting in mulch all over the garden so the burrs that get stuck in people’s shoes will go away and building a hugel to conserve water. Everything in the garden is organic and drought tolerant.
The entire school along with other clubs can get involve with the garden. The garden impacts the school and the community by establish a sense of nature in which students can participate in by planting vegetables or flowers.
Natalie Diaz, 12, president of Garden Club, says, “Our main goals we hope to reach for the garden are for it to gain popularity and become a community garden.”
The Garden Club meets every Friday at lunch @ 12:15 in room 5. Throughout the week the gardeners waters every other day, but it also depends on how sunny the day is. The work days are every other Saturday and the gardeners will be planting or weeding for 2 ½ hours.
By joining Garden Club, a gardener can learn that it is easy to maintain and invest time to make your own garden because of how simple it is.
Ms. Swanson said, “It is amazing to see a little seed to a big thing coming out.”
The main purpose of Garden Club is to introduce planting skills that can be used both in the school garden and in one that you may have at home. It is also to get the body involved in planting and harvesting vegetables so that they know what is capable of happening when they aren’t afraid of getting a little dirty. The gardeners hope the garden will grow into something that students find more interesting and even become a community garden at some point.
