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  • Teacher Jeanne Rudzki and some of her environmental science students at Fultondale High School check the progress of strawberries in the school's organic garden. Melanie Patterson

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May 4, 2010

'It's good for them to get dirt under their nails'

By Melanie Patterson The North Jefferson News

FULTONDALE — For three years, Jeanne Rudzki has enjoyed watching students reap the harvests of their own labor.

Rudzki, a teacher at Fultondale High School, has headed up a garden project at the school for three years.

This year, two of Rudzki’s environmental science classes are serving as the gardeners.

Senior Terrell Coleman has been one of the key workers in the garden. Coleman said he has enjoyed learning about gardening and about plants in the class.

Another student, Cody Powers, a junior, said he had never helped in a garden before he started helping in the project at school. He helped harvest the garden last year and this year has been planting seeds and tending to the plants.

“It’s been a good experience,” he said.

Rudzki said she has enjoyed seeing the students learn through the garden.

“It’s good for them to get dirt under their nails,” she said. “They get outside in the sunshine, too, and that makes them happy.”

Rudzki and the students are growing tomatoes, two types of lettuce, cucumbers, parsley, squash, green and hot peppers. Permanent crops include strawberries and two apple trees.

New this year are blueberry and raspberry bushes and a lime tree, which will be moved indoors during winter.

The garden also contains herbs such as lavender, mint, oregano, cilantro, rosemary, basil and lemon thyme.

The garden is organic, with a compost pile nearby.

The students have given some of the fruits and vegetables to the school cafeteria and have also taken some of it home.

Rudzki said this year she hopes to cook some food for the students to show them how herbs can be used to flavor foods.

Another teacher is working with Rudzki to use the garden as a learning experience in a different way.

Art teacher Donna Bailey’s eighth-grade art exploratory class has been studying Monet’s gardens at Giverny, near Paris, France.

Bailey’s students have been designing - on paper - their own “Monet gardens” and Bailey hopes to see some of the designs eventually come to life in actual gardens on campus.

Funding for the garden has come from Legacy, which gave a grant of $2,000, called the Composting, Organic Gardening and Wellness Act, to get the project started.

“The premise of the grant proposal is that organic products are not only healthier, but they taste better as well,” said Rudzki.

Rep. Scott Beason, R-17th, donated $380 this year for the garden.

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