The Grace Garden: What it Brings to Grace and Why it’s Important
Media of Mr. Williams, Grace O’Hara ’23, and Louise Giddings ’23 taken by Alejandro Izurieta ’24
Living in New York City, it is a rare opportunity for students to get their hands dirty in nature, feel the ground beneath them, and help grow the food they eat. The garden outside of 46 Cooper Square provides this for students and helps them connect to the nature they interact with daily.
Cynthia Jackson, a science teacher at Grace, has been extremely involved with the growth of the garden. In a Gazette interview, she explained that Grace has control over eight plots in the garden, growing “pollinator plants, raspberries, roses, flax, vegetable garden (potatoes, onions, spinach, green beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, squash, and horseradish), and a combination of perennials and annuals.” The garden includes plants that regrow every springtime and also plants that live only one growing season before dying off.
Along with Ms. Jackson’s care, there is also a lab day class, Urban Gardening, which helps maintain and keep the garden healthy. Classes like Urban Gardening give students the opportunity to work the soil, plant vegetables, garden the soil with fertilizer, and remove weeds in preparation for new planting and harvesting. Additionally, teachers use the plots to add to their curriculum. The uses of the garden are endless. The garden is a part of all of Grace’s students’ and teachers’ lives, whether they know it or not.
Contributing to the garden can help change one’s perspective on gardening and homegrown foods, especially when living in a city. Being isolated from food sources can often make people less appreciative of what they have and less connected to the environment. This lack of connection can be due to the lack of direct visual and physical connection to the growth of the food, and the alienation allows people to disregard how their food is being made and who is making it. By being part of the garden, students and teachers not only gain a new skill and hobby but also learn about how the food we eat is made. By caring for the land, one can teach others to do the same. The garden is a sign of respect for the city –for the land we live on — and it provides a sense of connection amongst the Grace community.
Ms. Jackson said she hopes that the garden evolves into an interactive experience that students can be a part of outside of the classroom. Having QR codes for plants and having students create music based on flowers are some examples of how the garden can grow and evolve into an immersive oasis.
Learning more about the garden allows students to learn more about the environment and sustainability. By planting on the plots, students add more oxygen to the atmosphere and suck up excessive carbon dioxide. In a time where it feels like climate change is too big a task to tackle, plotting in the garden allows students to make a marginal, yet clear impact. The garden outside of Grace Church High School is a place for students to have fun, learn more about nature, feel more connected to the food they eat, and learn more about the environment. There are many ways to get involved with the garden outside of school, whether that be joining the Urban Gardening class or something as simple as taking a stroll past the plots after school ends. Getting more involved with the garden can not only make the garden more beautiful than it already is, but introduce students to something that could potentially be impactful on them in a way they never expected.