Day 1 of Gardening at American

For our equity project, Lizzy and I went to the American High school gardening club on Friday March 25. When we first got there I was both nervous and excited. I told Lizzy and her sister as a joke, to beware because we were entering enemy territory. We were told to meet the gardening club at the lunch amphitheater. Of course we had no idea where to go; we couldn’t even find a way to get into the school. We did manage to find the office and Lizzy suggested that we ask for a map. We went inside and had a comedic moment. I turned my head to the right a saw a life sized version of a paper mache kid, it was really creepy so I let out a small “ahh!” Lizzy did the same thing, I looked at her and saw that she wasn’t looking were I had been, she was looking up. We both looked to see what the other had saw and let out an “ahh!” once more. Lizzy had been looking at a giant stuffed bird that was attached to the ceiling. We both agreed that the office was super creepy and wondered what the rest of the school would be like.
Nobody was in the office, but we managed to find a map taped down on the counter. No wonder we were lost. The classrooms surround the school forming a giant circle so you can’t get inside the campus unless you pass through a building. We managed to find our way into a building but the inside was just as much a maze as the outside was. We found a janitor and asked where the amphitheater was. She didn’t know so she asked another teacher and that teacher didn’t know either. I was shocked that even the workers didn’t know how to get around the school, but it turns out that American had no amphitheater so of course they had no idea what we were talking about. They called the gardening club and showed us the way.
The first thing that I noticed was that the rocky path we were walking on had cardboard underneath it. We later found out that this was done on purpose. I spoke to the teacher in charge named Candace Sykes and told her about the equity project. She was thrilled about it, and showed me a website that contained pictures of what the garden had looked like previously. To see it go to http://schools.stopwaste.org/ then click on the “school news” tab and select American High School. The gardening club was created by a Washington High School student named Julien Malard, and the volunteers come from the five different schools in Fremont.
After taking some photos of everybody working I decided that it was time to start helping out to. The first Job that we were assigned to do was to pull out all of the weeds, and the first question I asked was “which ones are the weeds?” Although I have gardened before, our weeds had yellow flowers on them while the weeds there had purple flowers. While we were weeding one kid (not Lizzy) accidently pulled out a carrot. After weeding for a while we all took turns using the hoe to get rid of some grass were future gardens will be placed. Then we did a thing called sheet mulching, which is a technique used to suppress weeds, build soil nutrients, conserve water, and protect garden plants. We did this by covering a section of grass and weeds with cardboard. We then put hooks in the cardboard to attach it to the ground, and put wood on top for an extra precaution.
Gardening was more fun than what I had anticipated. There were unexpected surprises everywhere! I found ladybugs, roly-poly’s, slugs, snails, worms, spiders, ants, caterpillars and butterflies. Gardening isn’t a good idea for people who fear bugs and dirt, but luckily I was completely used to it. Being a science teacher’s daughter I grew up living around and raising all sorts of critters. I asked Julien what would happen to the plants when they were fully grown. He said that everything that is grown in the garden will be given to the people who helped create it. I thought that this was a great idea. Gardening your own food, makes you really appreciate all the work put into making it, plus you know exactly how it was made and that it’s truly organic. This experience has inspired me to create a garden with my dad at home, but of course I am going to learn all I can from the club first.