FORT WALTON BEACH — A contagious condition best known as “green thumb” is sprouting at a local elementary school, and teachers couldn’t be happier.
For the last few months students, teachers, residents and businesses have pitched in to help Edwins Fine & Performing Arts School build gardens and grow food.
“They love, love the whole thing,” fifth-grade science teacher Sherri Harkins said. “They beg me every day, ‘Can we go out and work on the garden?’ ”
See more photos of the gardens »
Each grade level has its own raised bed to tend and conducts many experiments, said fifth-grader Ilene Bailey.
Fourth graders, for example, are testing what types of natural fertilizer work best for growing tomatoes and how marigolds can be used to control pests, said 10-year-old Ilene.
In addition to growing plants in the raised beds, students use less traditional containers such as laundry baskets and hay bales.
“What’s cool is that the straw will break down and give the vegetables nutrients,” 11-year-old Skyler Halsey said.
To celebrate Earth Day, fifth-graders picked out containers from recycling bins and placed plants in them.
“We really wish we could have done it from seeds,” Ilene said as she stood beside the makeshift plant containers attached to a chain-link fence surrounding the garden.
“But it still looks really cool,” 11-year-old Camryn Engle finished.
Harkins said the project has been a nearly year-long labor of love that got its start from a grant. She wants to expand the garden to another parcel at the Edwins to plant pumpkins and watermelons.
Harkins said she not only hopes to teach students core curriculum subjects through hands-on experience, but to show them the fruits of their labor.
“My goal is to teach them they can grow in any conditions,” she said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Katie Tammen at 850-315-4440 or ktammen@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KatieTnwfdn.