A missive from the fourth grade.

Gardens demand a lot of work. Even though I would categorize myself as a lazy gardener—certainly not the type to do weeding every day or even to venture into the garden when it’s too hot or wet—I still put a great deal of hope, sweat, and time into my relatively modest plot. There always seems to be something to do. But, no matter how much a garden might demand of us, one of the paradoxical truths of working in the dirt is that it always seems to pay out more than you put in: a single quash seed, dried and saved in an envelope, yields a dozen fruit the following year. A tomato plant purchased on a whim while you were supposed to be shopping for lumber furnishes a whole summer’s worth of salads, sauces, and improvised sandwiches.

The Classical Roots Veggie Garden, now in its early autumn prime, is no exception to this general rule. My tomatoes at home have long since yielded their last for the year but, thanks to the micro-climate we inadvertently created when we installed our garden between gravel paths next to a west-facing wall, the dozen tomato plants here at CCA are still laden with red jewels. The Swiss Chard, which loves cool evenings, is putting on more rainbow-colored leaves every day. And the butternut plants I wrote about last week are still giving, adding a few more plump russet-colored fruit to their count before the frost finally comes.

Swiss Chard looks its best this time of year—and tastes even better after a touch of frost.

Yet beyond these physical gifts, the garden has brought something even more important: it has created a space for the various parts and people in our school to cross paths, often unexpectedly but always wonderfully. More often than not, when I venture out to do some small piece of maintenance or another, I find another teacher wandering around, twisting a squash off its stem to take home or nibbling a leaf of basil. On other days, a whole art class will be sitting there, pencils in hand, sketching little views of the place in situ. Of course, it’s very nice when we’re able to eat from the garden, but this is no farm or homestead or even potager: the primary harvest of this particular garden is not vegetables but experiences. It’s designed to awaken a love of green and growing things in our students. And, so far, it seems to be yielding a very good crop.

A week or so ago, my twelfth-grade World Literature class was interrupted mid-lecture by a delightful surprise: a rolled-up note from a fourth-grade class in our Grammar School. It turns out that their teacher had harvested some of our tomatoes, made sauce out of them, and wanted to share the product of that work with us. These smart grammar schoolers, who were studying early societies, told us that they were the Minoans and wanted to establish a trade relationship. Casting our own lesson aside, we wrote them back as Egyptians, grabbing as many snack foods as we could and replying in due form. We’ve exchanged several letters with them since: a lovely relationship that all began with a batch of ripe tomatoes.

On another occasion, I opened the faculty fridge to find a huge jar of butternut squash soup with my name on it: our art teacher had taken one and was sharing the proceeds. Honestly, my student volunteers probably deserved this treat more than I did, since they do as much of the dirty work as I do. But the soup was too delicious to share, so I hoarded it.

These little occasions, which seem to be getting more frequent the longer the garden is around, are a symptom that it has begun to penetrate the imaginations of the school, to get enfolded into the school’s identity. I’m not sure where that commerce will lead us, but I am certain that we’ll be the richer for it.