June 6, 2009 — The Addelita Cancryn Junior High School garden is greener than ever, but it's not all from the recent rains. The tires holding the plants are now painted a brilliant lime green, all 25 enclosures lined up neatly in rows of five.
At first glance the bright area in back of the school looks for all the world like an amusement park, the colors stand out so in the otherwise nondescript terrain.
"The green is the color of the Student School Improvement Committee," teacher Wendy Diaz says. She is mentor for that group, along with the after-school Tshwane program she founded a few years ago. Both groups will tend the garden over the summer.
And there's something else new. The 200-foot long retaining wall behind the garden is painted in the same lime green. "That's the first step," Diaz says. "The students in Austin Petersen's art class are going to cover the wall in murals of the groups involved in the garden.
"They'll paint our Tshwane logo, students walking through a door into a globe, and the UVI extension service, and GrowVI."
The project was inaugurated in April by Richard Pluke, Fintrac agronomist, who has worked hand in hand with local farmers for the last four years implementing sustainable technologies, along with Diaz and Chloe Beyer of GrowVI, a new not-for-profit group working to bring together farmers, restaurants and consumers to promote sustainable agriculture.
Two professionals from the University of the Virgin Islands Cooperative Extension Service — Carlos Robles and Albion George — are lending their expertise to the project. They bring seedlings, donated by UVI and the Department of Agriculture.
The plants proudly sprout up from the enclosures — deep green basil plants are almost two feet high, and the eggplants aren't far behind. The generous cabbages bound out the sides of their enclosures, and tiny yellow blossoms appear on the tomatoes which are reaching up to the sky.
Diaz stoops to examine a ladybug on an eggplant leaf. "These are so good for the garden," she says. "They eat the aphids, which would destroy these plants."
Tiffany Quetel, a Gladys Abraham Elementary School member of the Tshwane group, admires the ladybug. "I want these on my tomato plant, too," she says.
"We don't use any pesticides," Diaz says.
Thursday afternoon, just a few students are tending the garden since it's exam time, almost the end of the school year. However, seventh graders Blairanna Glasford, Renee Gregoire and Skye Trills are putting their all into the project.
Irrigation is still a chore. Three students maneuver a wheelbarrow down to the garden. It's filled with one-gallon water bottles, which the students apply to the thirsty plants. "It's lots of work," Glasford says, "but it's worth it. We have to water them so they'll grow."
The youngsters have to fill the bottles from the only water supply, which is at the front of the schoolyard. "We have to water the plants twice daily," Diaz says. "We do it in two shifts, in the morning and after school. In the morning the plants were already dry. It takes lots of water."
Before the summer is out, Diaz says, "We will have to harvest the plants." She hopes to be able to use the school cafeteria for a vegetable feast, "but that's not for certain yet." She says at this point they won't be selling the produce, but it's an idea for later in the school year.
The garden has branched out to the east with a budding miniature orchard — small pots of sprouting Asian cherry, avocado, mango, sugar apple, banana, passion fruit.
Though the garden is growing in leaps and bounds, it is in need of some community support, Diaz notes. She has purchased the wheelbarrow out of her own funds.
"We always need more volunteers," Diaz say, "and more funds."
Editor's note: The Source is monitoring the progress of the garden with a running account of what's needed, as well as the problems and the successes in the students' and volunteers' efforts.
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