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Paddock Elementary School student Dylan Roe weeds the lettuce patch during the Paddock Community and Learning Garden's inaugural season last year. The garden has proved popular with students, families and the community. Last year, it produced about 300 pounds of produce, most of which was donated to Aid in Milan for distribution.
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Hundreds of little hands have worked the soil of a plot of land just north of Paddock Elementary School.
Big hands have gotten dirty, too.
As it readies to enter its second season, the Paddock Community and Learning Garden is taking root and growing.
The brainchild of Paddock Elementary School multi-age teacher Liz Sutherland has drawn wide community and school support since it was launched last year.
"The hope was that the garden would link the schools to the community and to families," Sutherland said. "We believed we just needed to start gardening and it would take off from there."
It has.
Last year, the garden produced some 300 pounds of produce, including lettuce, radishes tomatoes, spinach, chard and herbs, much of which was donated to Aid in Milan for distribution.
The garden has drawn wide community support, from inquiries to donations to volunteers.
"Quite often I'd be out in the garden and people would ride or walk by and wave hi, and want to know more about what we were doing," Sutherland said.
The project was awarded a $1,500 grant from the Greater Milan Area Community Foundation for the construction of permanent structures such as raised beds, fencing and woodchip paths.
Local landscaper John Schmidt, who attended Paddock Elementary School as a child and now has children in the school, has donated topsoil and compost.
A troop of Boy Scouts is coming out in mid-April to pitch in and help prepare build the raised beds.
One family donated wood for the creation of the garden's new sign, which was designed by a Paddock art teacher.
Hundreds of seed packets have been donated.
"We're getting bigger," Sutherland said. "We just keep plugging along."
Sutherland has big plans for the 10-by-30 plot, envisioning a gazebo someday where tired gardeners can rest and talks on nutrition can be held, mirroring the garden's goal to wed community and learning.
The gardens benefits are numerous, said Sutherland, from the exercise it affords participants to the camaraderie it encourages to the connection to nature it allows.
"There's so much good about it, it just seemed the right thing to do," Sutherland said.
In addition to the elementary school students who planted seeds, tended the garden and reaped the harvest, several families worked beds of their own last year and more have signed up for plots this year, including Milan High School athletic trainer Amanda Kaiser and her two daughters, Suzannah, 10, and Katie, 8.
"It's our first year and we are full of enthusiasm," Kaiser said.
Even as popularity for the community garden gains momentum, Sutherland is anxious to fan the flame and invite even wider participation, seeking volunteers and more donated supplies.
Among the supplies the project could use are healthy plants and seeds, straw bales, gardening gloves, shovels, hand tools, a wheelbarrow, hoses, string and stakes.
For more information about the community garden or to donate supplies, contact Sutherland at 439-5128 or Sutherland@milan.k12.mi.us.
Staff Writer Brian Cox can be reached at 429-7380 or bcox@heritage.com.
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