Visiting Pioneer Settlement Garden

After studying herbs and planting them in the garden beds of The Experiential School outdoor classroom, along with some other seeds, it was off to the Pioneer Settlement Garden for the Alpha classes this week!

Pioneer Settlement Garden is an all volunteer, organically grown and propagated demonstration and educational vegetable/fruit garden in the City's Pioneer Settlement section of Boyd Hill Preserve. They use only local resources to make the soil, a combination of various manures, City soil builder, mulch and heavy layers of seagrass. Their mission is to give half of what they produce to charities.

At the Garden students met “Farmer Ray” Wunderlich III, who attended Shorecrest and has been instrumental in Shorecrest on-campus gardening, and learned about his project to provide food for homeless shelters. During a walk around the grounds, the children saw an old sawmill where the boards used to create our raised garden beds were cut. They discovered that the pine cones they collected are actually seeds from which new trees can grow, and learned about composting as a natural way to feed the garden. The children saw young arugula, kale and radish plants; and when they tasted the chives, clamored for more!

On future visits, the children will be helping Farmer Ray and checking the progress of his crops.