Community garden at Animas Elementary School introduced to community with garden party

When AmeriCorps volunteer resident Livie Nute began her current assignment of helping put together a community garden at Farmington’s Animas Elementary School last year, the first lesson she hoped to share with students was simple and straightforward.

“Yeah, it’s OK to get your hands dirty,” she said, smiling and recalling that message. “My favorite part of watching the kids in the garden is how gentle they are with the plants. That gives me hope for the future. We really do have generations of people coming up who are learning to care for the Earth.”

Nute, who originally is from Durango, Colorado, was one of several people who have worked on the garden who took part in a community garden party on Monday, April 22 at the school. The event was designed to introduce the community to the garden and perhaps convince a few of those visitors to come back and work on the project as growing season unfolds.

The party included dancing by the Johnson Family Fancy Dancers, music by Mark Smith and a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the garden by the Farmington Chamber of Commerce Redcoats.

The garden features 12 wooden planters filled with radishes, peas, cabbage, lettuce, kale, chives, cilantro, beans and beets; a greenhouse; a small orchard with peach and apple trees; several blackberry bushes; and an in-ground garden where potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli and jalapenos will be grown.

Nute said she has been working on the garden since August 2023 when she began her assignment at the school. When she arrived, the garden was not in good shape, as it had been started several years ago but was largely abandoned during the COVID-19 pandemic. That left Nute and various others to remove numerous rocks from the grounds and conduct general clean-up operations before a cyclone fence and an irrigation systems could be installed, and the wooden planters could be repaired in preparation for planting this spring.

A total of 55 students who are members of a local Boys & Girls Clubs organization are enrolled in a weekly program with Nute in which they learn about cooking with fresh produce during the winter and help out in the garden during the warmer months.

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There is also a gardening club of students, parents and community members that meets at the school every Saturday at 10 a.m. to pull weeds, do planting, water the grounds and keep the garden tidy. Anyone is welcome to join that club.

But the focus of the program is to teach students how to grow their own produce and develop a taste for healthy food, Nute said.

“That’s the hope,” she said. “We definitely want (the produce) to get in the students’ households. It also possibly will be served in the (Animas Elementary School) cafeteria.”

But Nute said simply making healthy food available to young people is only half the battle.

“For me, where I’m coming at this from, is you can offer kids healthy foods, but their dietary preferences have to change for them to want to eat it.”

That change may not be easy to achieve, bit it is doable, she said, noting the success she has had in introducing new foods to the kids in her weekly cooking classes.

“At the beginning of the year, none of them would try red cabbage,” she said. “Now, they all love it.”

Nute may want those students to make mature choices when it comes to their diet, but she also wants them to retain their child-like sense of wonder when it comes to tending the garden. The best part of the experience, she said, is easy to describe.

“I think just playing in the dirt,” she said. “Having the freedom to explore nature and learning how nature keeps us alive. I remember being a kid and how good it felt to be barefoot and just dig my hands in the soil.”

Mike Easterling can be reached at 505-564-4610 or measterling@daily-times.com.Support local journalism with a digital subscription: http://bit.ly/2I6TU0e.

This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: Animas Elementary School opens grounds for community garden party