By Satina Tolman
For The New Era
For more than a decade, Holley Elementary School’s garden has been a place where students discover more than vegetables sprouting from the soil. They also find patience, cooperation and joy in the process.
First-grade teacher Joanna Reisbick has led the Holley Garden Club for the past 12 years, the entire time she has taught at the school. She has been teaching in Sweet Home for 22 years, including 12 years with first-graders at Holley.
Students may join the Garden Club in the spring of their first-grade year, and younger children are welcome if they have a parent who volunteers. This fall, 14 students are enrolled, though Reisbick said the club has had as many as 26.
“They plant in the spring and then harvest in the fall,” Reisbick said.
The students grow a wide variety of produce, including corn, green beans, spinach, melons, Swiss chard, tomatillos, beets, carrots, cucumbers, pumpkins, strawberries, and more. Everything is grown organically with fertilizer that comes from mushroom compost donated by Central Bark and chicken manure from local families.
For the children, the harvest is the highlight. On a recent afternoon, the students cheered when Reisbick told them they could each pull up a carrot, carefully choosing ones planted too close together to make room for the others to grow. After rinsing them off in the hose, the children munched on their fresh snack with wide smiles.
Third-grader Sawyer Billington said his favorite part of the club is simple: “When we pick the vegetables, we get to eat them.”
Second-grader Logan Bennett said he especially loves carrots “because they don’t taste like anything, they don’t taste like vegetables.” He added that making zucchini muffins was another favorite, even if “they were hard to make because they had like a million ingredients.”
The club is a family affair for Rebecca Stalheim, the parent volunteer this year, and her fourth-grade twins, Joanna and Didrik. Both said they grew up in the garden and feel at home in the dirt.
“My mom is a crazy gardener and I would help her a lot in the garden, so growing up I would pretty much live in the garden,” Joanna said. “I am just one with the garden!”
“My favorite part about gardening club is when I pick the crops,” Didrik said.
Reisbick said it’s that excitement, whether harvesting, watering, or just watching a dragonfly land nearby, that makes the club thrive.
“They are so excited to harvest or water or do anything for the garden,” she said.
The club has also become a community project. The Rotary Club built raised beds, while local gardeners Heather Wright and Sheryl Casteen donated seeds and plants. Wright has even filled in for Reisbick when she was absent.
“She’s awesome!” Reisbick said.
Other volunteers, including Julie Harvey, Dawn Barringer, Jay and Ann Marie Marble, and fellow Holley teacher Deborah Rehart, have pitched in with donating plants, weeding, watering and fixing the irrigation system. Families take turns caring for the garden in the summer, and the Holley PTC provides a small budget for supplies.
Reisbick said she dreams of partnering with a Master Gardener to expand the club’s greenhouse use. Any Master Gardener who is interested in volunteering and inspiring the young gardeners is encouraged reach out to Reisbick at the school.
Reisbick said she would also love to join with other gardening clubs in the community to do a student produce stand at the farmers market to teach both gardening and economics.
This fall, Riesbick hopes to have the Garden Club join schools across Oregon in the Oct. 23 “Oregon Crunch at Once” event, when students take a synchronized bite of locally grown produce in celebration of National Farm to School Month. More information is available at oregonfarmtoschool.org.
In the meantime, she makes sure the students get to enjoy the fruits and vegetables of their labor. Over the years, they’ve eaten watermelon, corn, cucumbers, green beans, etc, straight from the vine and cooked together in the classroom. They have also enjoyed making everything from smoothies and salsa to root vegetable pizza with a protein-rich garbanzo bean pizza sauce.
“It really is tasty and adds extra nutrition, especially when the kids want a cheese-only pizza,” Reisbick said. “It sneaks in a little extra fiber and protein, and they love it!”
They’ve also tried spaghetti squash with homemade marinara sauce, hummus, and eggplant baba ganoush. The kids are often surprised by what they discover that they like, but they haven’t loved it all.
“They were not too sure about the spaghetti squash, but they loved the sauce and ate it up by dipping bread into it,” Riesbick admitted.
For Reisbick, the lessons go far beyond gardening skills. “They learn patience, taking turns, timing, being respectful, how to be safe and responsible, cooperation, and learning what they are capable of, especially when they work together,” she said.
And at the root of it all, she added, is joy. “It’s not just about growing vegetables,” Reisbick said. “It’s about growing kids who believe they can do hard things, and that’s the real harvest.”