Garden
Welcome to the NSHS Community Sustainable Garden
This garden began in 2011 when an eager group of eight students with an interest in gardening tore up a 10’ by 10’ swath of grass outside the school’s greenhouse and tried their luck at growing some vegetables organically. Today, this 2,500 sq. ft. plot serves as a powerful educational tool and resource for the entire NSHS community. Students operate and manage our four-season garden with following goals:
· To learn about sustainable, organic farming practices and reduce the school’s environmental footprint.
· To engage with the ecological, economic and socio-political issues that face small farms in New England.
· To promote local food systems and increase access to fresh produce within our immediate community and beyond.
Our Microclimate – Why is this garden right here?
We intentionally selected this area of the school grounds for our garden to take advantage of a beneficial microclimate that helps us extend our growing season. The south-facing plot receives many hours of uninterrupted direct sunlight, even on short fall and winter days. The school building and the wooded area behind our shed act as natural windbreaks and shield the garden from warmth-sapping winds. The building also absorbs radiant heat from the sun and returns it to our soil, helping to thaw our plant beds earlier in the spring and delaying their freezing in late fall. The gentle slope of the garden helps it drain in heavy rains and keeps plants from casting long shadows on one another.
Season Extension Equipment – Getting the most out of the growing season
With the peak growing season occurring during our summer vacation months, we embrace the challenge of growing crops during the cooler and shorter days of the school year. We do this by focusing our energies on quick-growing and cold-hardy plants. And just as the natural microclimate in our garden allows us to modestly extend our growing season, so too do several invaluable pieces of equipment – our cold frames and low tunnels. Much like the inside of your parked car can get toasty and warm on a cold but sunny day, these low-tech, transparent or translucent devices act as miniature greenhouses sitting directly on top of our plant beds as the sun warms both the air and soil underneath them. The shelter they provide also blocks the winds that would rob the garden of the ambient heat generated by the sun. It is not unusual for the air temperature inside our cold frames or low tunnels to be 15°F or 20°F warmer than the air on the other side of the pane of glass or piece of fabric.
Increasing Food Literacy, Supporting A Local Food System, Creating Socially Responsible Supply Chains
Where does the produce grown here end up? Some of it is used in our culinary arts and nutrition courses to teach students where food comes from and challenge their eating habits by exposing them to unfamiliar tastes in the freshest form possible. In late Spring and early Fall, produce is sold to our cafeteria’s food service company for use in healthy school lunches, giving our student-farmers experience in the supply side of food systems. These students also operate periodic “pop-up” farm stand sales for faculty, staff and parents and receive direct feedback from these customers. Through both sales opportunities, students gain insight into the economic realities facing farmers and the razor-thin margins that farms must operate within year in and year out.
This garden began in 2011 when an eager group of eight students with an interest in gardening tore up a 10’ by 10’ swath of grass outside the school’s greenhouse and tried their luck at growing some vegetables organically. Today, this 2,500 sq. ft. plot serves as a powerful educational tool and resource for the entire NSHS community. Students operate and manage our four-season garden with following goals:
· To learn about sustainable, organic farming practices and reduce the school’s environmental footprint.
· To engage with the ecological, economic and socio-political issues that face small farms in New England.
· To promote local food systems and increase access to fresh produce within our immediate community and beyond.
Our Microclimate – Why is this garden right here?
We intentionally selected this area of the school grounds for our garden to take advantage of a beneficial microclimate that helps us extend our growing season. The south-facing plot receives many hours of uninterrupted direct sunlight, even on short fall and winter days. The school building and the wooded area behind our shed act as natural windbreaks and shield the garden from warmth-sapping winds. The building also absorbs radiant heat from the sun and returns it to our soil, helping to thaw our plant beds earlier in the spring and delaying their freezing in late fall. The gentle slope of the garden helps it drain in heavy rains and keeps plants from casting long shadows on one another.
Season Extension Equipment – Getting the most out of the growing season
With the peak growing season occurring during our summer vacation months, we embrace the challenge of growing crops during the cooler and shorter days of the school year. We do this by focusing our energies on quick-growing and cold-hardy plants. And just as the natural microclimate in our garden allows us to modestly extend our growing season, so too do several invaluable pieces of equipment – our cold frames and low tunnels. Much like the inside of your parked car can get toasty and warm on a cold but sunny day, these low-tech, transparent or translucent devices act as miniature greenhouses sitting directly on top of our plant beds as the sun warms both the air and soil underneath them. The shelter they provide also blocks the winds that would rob the garden of the ambient heat generated by the sun. It is not unusual for the air temperature inside our cold frames or low tunnels to be 15°F or 20°F warmer than the air on the other side of the pane of glass or piece of fabric.
Increasing Food Literacy, Supporting A Local Food System, Creating Socially Responsible Supply Chains
Where does the produce grown here end up? Some of it is used in our culinary arts and nutrition courses to teach students where food comes from and challenge their eating habits by exposing them to unfamiliar tastes in the freshest form possible. In late Spring and early Fall, produce is sold to our cafeteria’s food service company for use in healthy school lunches, giving our student-farmers experience in the supply side of food systems. These students also operate periodic “pop-up” farm stand sales for faculty, staff and parents and receive direct feedback from these customers. Through both sales opportunities, students gain insight into the economic realities facing farmers and the razor-thin margins that farms must operate within year in and year out.