Futuring The Clinton Garden

Humble beginnings, early Spring 2010

Summer bounty 2014

We're dreamers with big ideas and big plans and from what we've experienced so far, we know that dreams do become real.  In just five years, we've succeeded in transforming our campus and now we're dreaming from a whole different space.  Where there was drab there is color.  Where there was tawny grass there are bright red cherry tomatoes to pluck and eat and share. Where there was little to stimulate the senses there is the humming and fragrance of a radiant garden and wildlife habitat. 

Our efforts at beautifying the DeWitt Clinton High School campus have not gone unnoticed. On June 27, we were awarded the 2014 Golden Apple by the New York City Department of Sanitation Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling.  Not only were we Bronx Borough Winners in the TrashMasters, Team Up to Clean Up! Category, we were City Wide Winners. Is ours the most lush, beautiful and productive school garden in all of New York City? So I've been told.

The DeWitt Clinton High School Community receiving the Golden Apple and Golden Shovel Awards, June 2014

We've always grown a wide variety of vegetables and have learned that certain crops do consistently well.  Kale, tomato, varieties of lettuce, pepper, basil, parsley, sunflowers, corn and beans have flourished in our garden but we have not stopped experimenting with new varieties.  This year our stands of turnip and okra look outstanding.   We introduced grapes last year and this year we have started gooseberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry and more grapes.  Our native plant garden attracts bees and butterflies and our reluctance to mow has enabled the spread of Swamp Milkweed, Blue Mist Flower, Black-eyed Susans and Mint in random spots throughout the garden. Gym classes leaving the building for the field walk past festive Zinnia, Marigold, Balsam and Calliopsis.

This summer our garden is even more beautiful than ever primarily because we have initiated The Clinton Garden Summer Internship Program.  Whereas in previous summers, student volunteers from the Environmental Affairs Club would ascend on the garden periodically in response to my requests on our Facebook page, this summer we have a dedicated team of five interns who are each spending a minimum of 30 hours caring for, watering and maintaining the garden.  With the success of this summer's program we are sure to make this a lasting offering to our students in the years to come. We are especially proud to provide our interns with a modest stipend thanks to funding provided by a Grow to Learn Grant we received back in January.

From left, Summer Interns Maribel Vitagliani, Clarissa Recamier and Stephanie M. Reyes working the worm bin.

During the hottest afternoons, a make-shift sprinkler does the trick...

...and no one is spared!

And where would our garden be without compost?  The growth of our completely organic garden has depended upon our ability to expand our ability to create the rich, dense, moisture retaining and nutritious (AND FREE !!!!) soil amendment known as compost. Along with the Golden Apple, we were awarded The Golden Shovel in June for our exemplary composting system already in place. But even before this award, we received a Compost Grant from Citizens Committee for New York City. Starting in the fall, we will expand our operation by purchasing additional EnviroCycle Tumblers to finally begin composting cafeteria vegetable kitchen scraps and coffee grounds from at least six offices.

Good compost means good volunteers, like this butternut squash! 

We presently boast seventeen beds (we started with five) perhaps finally reaching capacity for the narrow 96' x 21' space we presently occupy.  But our campus is built upon a 23 acre piece of land and while a substantial amount of this land is occupied by our school building, track and playing fields we have the space to expand.  Our most ambitious future plans for the garden involve the construction of The James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center. This multipurpose outdoor classroom facility will memorialize the great American writer and civil rights hero who graduated from DeWitt Clinton in 1942 and whose life and career best exemplifies to us the idea that learning and education also take place outside of the classroom.

                        

And so, this fall, we know what we will be striving towards.  We'll continue to develop our plans for the expansion of the garden and the construction of our outdoor learning center, we'll continue to work with our numerous partner organizations, we'll continue to bring programming about food, health, gardening, composting and sustainability into The Clinton Garden and onto our school campus, we'll continue to recruit our own faculty and students to take part in growing the garden and we'll continue to build our dreams from where we presently stand.  

DWC faculty members Amneris Rasuk Garcia and Allison Burke-Soall driving in the final screw in what might be the last raised bed in The Clinton Garden, Spring 2014 - we're out of room in our present space!

DWC faculty member Franklyn Myal has adopted the role of weed-wacker at The Clinton Garden, Spring 2014.

From left, AmeriCorp Vista Service Member Augie, School Gardener Ray Pultinas, Clinton Garden Summer Interns Andrew Madero, Maribel Vitigliani, Clarissa Recamier, Stephanie M. Reyes and Americorp Vista Service Member Ellen Winston join forces to construct supports for black raspberry, Summer 2014.  

Golden Apple (Borough and City Wide Winners) and Golden Shovel Awards, Spring 2014