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Children dig new garden
By LINDA N. WELLER
The Telegraph
ALTON - A dozen diggers took to one of four, pie-sliced, raised garden beds Saturday to bury potato eyes and drop in sugar snap pea and radish seeds at Hellrung Park's first community garden.
Little Taron Steward, 6, was a digging machine as he used a hand trowel to attack the freshly tilled dirt. He carefully mounded up soil, poked in some potato chunks, covered them up and patted down the hill - again and again and again.
He would only nod when asked if he was having fun.
Neighbor Connie Redden brought her two daughters and two other children to the dig-in.
"My mom told me about it, and I came down because I like to do something constructive for the neighborhood," Redden said. "It will be great for them to see what they put down in the spring" as the plants grow. Redden's daughter Alexis, 8, and her friend Sierra Scott, 10, said they never had planted a garden before. Sierra, though, said she likes digging in the soil, and the girls all proved they didn't mind getting dirty.
Alton High School senior Christine McPike, 17, also got dirty helping the children and appeared to enjoy herself.
McPike, of Alton, said she wants to major in biology and minor in environmental policy in college. She volunteered because she is interested in such activities and is becoming involved with Sierra Club.
The contingent followed suggestions and instructions from Christine Favilla, who is involved in Community Cultivators and directs the Piasa Palisades Group of the Sierra Club, although Hellrung Community Garden is an independent effort.
"Put the potato (chunk) with the eye up. It's going to reach up to the sky," she told the eager children.
Virginia Woulfe-Beile, golf superintendent for the city of Alton, and Vera Bojic of the National Great Rivers Center added their advice and pitched in with the "dirty" work, trowels in hand.
Woulfe-Beile first pulled out a few straggler flower stems from last year and showed the children how to squish sticky dirt clots, which they enjoyed.
As the group progressed with the planting, nearly filling the triangle, the diggers got more and more enthused. As the cool-weather crops mature and die off, the gardeners will replace them with warm weather vegetables, herbs and flowers.
The children then got to decorate flower pots, fill them with potting soil and poke in peppermint plants. Plans had been to transplant shamrocks, but Favilla said she discovered the plants have a short life.
Favilla asked Haley Redden, 5, and Sierra what they wanted to plant next time. "Flowers," both girls said. "What is your favorite color?" Favilla asked. Haley answered, "Blue." The girls also wanted to plant pink and purple flowers to go with them.
Favilla said the next session, open to anyone, will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 7, with the following planned tasks:
- Building/putting in a trellis for the sugar snap peas.
- Planting more cool-weather vegetables, perhaps spinach, broccoli, leeks, garlic, onions, turnips, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers and more radishes.
- Planting some cool-weather flowers - particularly blue, pink and purple.
- Adding soil to the potato mounds.
linda_weller@thetelegraph.com
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Planting peas are, from left, Virginia Woulfe-Beile, Sierra Scott, 10, Alexis Redden, 8, Haley Matthews, 5, and Tammi Burk in the middle of a quarter of the Hellrung Community Garden. Children were also offered the chance to plant a plant in a container, decorate the container and take it home to watch the plant grow.
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