Sherborn Cub Scouts Get Down and Dirty at Pine Hill 'Edible Garden'

For the kids in Sherborn Cub Scouts Pack 10 yesterday it was a good thing that they came home covered in dirt.

A group of over 30 Cub Scouts from Pine Hill Elementary School in Sherborn helped to weed and clean up the school's edible garden to prepare it for the growing season.

“The garden has become overcome with weeds over the last year or so,” said Cub Scout Den Leader Bo O’Connell. “We’ve got our pack meeting here today. The guys did a great job weeding, picking up rocks and really getting this to be a base line for a new garden.”

The kids got to work quickly plucking weeds, shoveling rocks, tilling soil and picking up debris and in no time the plot of land behind Pine Hill looked good enough to eat off of - almost.

Last year the garden - which was dedicated to long-time second grade teacher Anita Swierupski who retired in 2011 - grew beans, corn and squash.

“You should have seen the huge corn stalks over the summer, it was like Jack and the Beanstalk,” said Donna Moore, Pine Hill parent representative of the Dover-Sherborn School Nutrition Advisory Committee (D-S SNAC).

This year, with help from the students at Pine Hill the garden will grow herbs such as chives, parsley, thyme, basil, cilantro and dill and vegetables like cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, beans (pole and bush), squash (summer and winter), radishes, corn, beets and lettuce.

Other possibilities include swiss chard, peppers, eggplant, kale, leeks, carrots, parsnips, peas, spinach, heirloom tomatoes, pumpkins, rosemary, mint and sunflowers, Moore said.

The garden will be made up of six beds - one for each grade at Pine Hill, K-5.

After the plants are ready for harvest, D-S SNAC plans to incorporate the veggies and herbs into the school lunch program.

The garden stemmed from a growing initiative at Pine Hill and all D-S schools to provide education and healthy food options for students in order to help them make smart decisions when it comes to eating healty.

Every day at lunch the students at Pine Hill separate their waste as part of a .

“What we’d love to do is use the compost in the garden and then voila! Kids see this is where real food comes from,”  said Moore.

Moore said that they hope this project is the beginning of a tradition of healthy eating decisions at all D-S schools.

“It’s great to literally plant that seed and have it take off from there,” she said.