1st Place Organic Gold Award
P.S. 94 — The David Porter School
Little Neck, New York

Located in the heart of Queens, P.S. 94 — The David Porter School is a model of what an urban school can do to create a wonderful gardening experience! We are a New York City school that operates at a 157% student capacity. Every available piece of space is utilized for learning and this includes our small 6 feet by 60 feet wide garden area. We produce extraordinary gardening results in our garden of eatery and a hob knob of curriculum adventures.

Preserving the earth and recycling nature's bounty starts with composting. All lunch food scraps are put in our "Red Wiggler Condo" compost bin located in the cafeteria (which also serves as our science room). At P.S. 94 all students are taught that "worms eat my garbage." The Worm Squad collects the lunch scraps that are fed to our worms. The compost is used in our outside gardens, and inside classroom gardening projects like our 2nd grade water cycle terrarium projects. We link gardening to preserving the earth as much as possible. Students are given seeds from last year's garden to nurture a new plant for this year's garden. Students grow a "hot house plant for our garden" and care for it at home until it is ready to be put into the ground. Over the past ten years, P.S. 94 has won first place the New York City's Golden Apple Recycling Awards, which center around garden beautification, saving the earth, and reducing waste.

Our modest garden is first rotor tilled by our custodians with last year's decomposed deciduous leaves. We begin in early spring, having students draw out diagram suggestions for the new garden. Students are taken out into the garden to measure what will be grown and where. Our garden not only feeds people, but provides food for our six science room mammals (our guinea pigs and Back Bear hamsters adore our dried sunflower and watermelon seeds that were grown in the school garden). Students begin weeding and preparing the soil with compost mixtures. Rows are measured out. Classes bring the germinated plants that have been grown in their classroom to the garden to plant. Marigolds are grown to place between rows to naturally control garden pests.

At P.S. 94, our garden is totally organic. We model the Bronx Botanical Gardens vegetable growth technique by using hay between each row. Ladybugs are raised in the science room and are released into the garden as soon as they are ready. Students take turns weeding, watering, and caring for the garden daily during recess time. We record plant growth and compare this year's yield with last year's growth. During the summer, faculty members, along with our custodial staff, take turns caring for the garden (this is because New York City does not permit students access to the property during the summer).

This year's crop produced tomatoes, cucumbers, sunflowers, peppers, white eggplant, sweet potatoes, watermelon, one cantaloupe, broccoli, oregano, mint, and basil. Each class had an exciting turn picking the fruits of our labor. At P.S. 94, we are crazy about food!!! We enjoyed our magnificent bounty and began with a "Watermelon Feast" day, and then came the "I Love Salad Day" (tomatoes, basil, and cucumber smothered in ranch dressing!). We toasted sunflower seeds with salt and also fried eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, and basil and served them on crackers. Parents helped us prepare and serve our vegetables during the lunch periods.