Jen Carson and Fran McManus, who led the popular Iron Chef cooking program at John Witherspoon Middle School last spring, worked with Steve Carson, science teacher and faculty sponsor of the JW Environmental Club, to share use of the school’s raised bed edible gardens.
The two, aided by Steven Schultz, who owns Bountiful Boxes and donated the labor to build two new boxes, have new gardens planted with tomatoes, basil and other edibles to show for their effort. Students will benefit this fall; the expanded JW Iron Chef program will have garden-fresh produce available, only steps away from the kitchens.
Volunteers also made short work of weeding and mulching in the other beds, repurposing old bamboo stakes to provide a teepee trellis for cucumbers, and providing straw for the students’ burgeoning tomato crop to rest upon.