Children's garden keeps love of growing going

Stonington ― For the past 30 years the Stonington Community Center Children's Garden has been introducing kids to nature and a variety of healthy foods through gardening.

On Thursday morning, second and third graders from Camp COMO joined volunteers from the Stonington Garden Club to dig potatoes out of raised beds. Next Monday they will harvest the leeks that were growing in a nearby plot to make a potato leek soup.

The garden is a partnership between the two organizations. The community center owns the land, while the space is managed by the garden club. Volunteers from the club work two or three days a week in the garden and campers or preschool students stop by almost every day as part of their curriculum.

Raised beds with seasonal flowers, vegetables and fruits as well as a small pond, shaded pavilion, play structures and more fill the fenced-in space on Cutler Street.

“It’s really cool the excitement the kids have in the garden,” said Stonington Garden Club President Deb Dodds. “That’s been consistent through the decades.”

Dodds and other volunteers joined the group of 7- to 9-year-olds Thursday as they dug through the dirt looking for potatoes, shells and worms. Decland Pond, 9, of Stonington, stuck his tongue out as she showed him a potato that had been rotting.

“I think I’m finding more worms than potatoes,” said Caroline Warhola, 8, of Stonington, as she sat on the edge of the raised bed and used a red shovel to dig through the dirt.

“There are some days 60 kids come through here,” Dodds said of the garden property.

Every year the garden club starts the plants from seeds. In May preschool students help volunteers plant seedlings. In the summer campers help weed, maintain the garden and harvest the vegetables and fruits. This year they have already harvested tomatoes, carrots, beets, sweet peas and more. In the fall preschool students will help with pumpkins and other cold weather vegetables before cleaning up the beds.

Dodds asked the children what they wanted to plant next year as they worked together in the raised beds. The most common response was lollipops.