A few months ago a new club began at Menlo, the Garden Club. Led by teacher advisor and upper school science teacher Tanya Buxton and seniors Polly Golikova and Eva Hitchcock, the Garden Club has grown over 6 different kinds of winter vegetables over the past few months. The club began when Golikova and Hitchcock became inspired after volunteering for an organization called the Homeless Garden Project for their PACT project. The place they volunteered “is a community garden in Santa Cruz that provides year-round work, rehabilitation, and workshops to get homeless people back on their feet,” Hitchcock said. Golikova added that her love of nature was a main cause of her interest in gardening, as well as her memories with family. “My grandparents in Russia have a huge garden on their property, and I spent a lot of time there as a kid.” Golikova said. Buxton also has many memories with the outdoors, and her love for nature has proven prevalent in her career. She said, “I ran a garden and farm science program for 500 elementary school kids,” at the school she worked at prior to returning to Menlo. “I taught everyday outdoors in the garden, and classrooms would come in one at a time for an hour lesson,” Buxton said.

Members of the club planted their own garden outside of the upper school dance building. Golikova said one obstacle they faced was finding a place to put the garden, as she said there was trouble with getting the school to “let [the club] use a lot of spots [they] proposed initially.” She said it then took a “couple of hours at the store getting seedlings,” and another “two hours to plant it all.” The club “planted winter vegetables on purpose, since they can withstand this cold,” Buxton said, referring to the frigid weather the Bay Area has recently been experiencing. However, she added that gardening in the climate of Atherton is not difficult. “Around here, you can plant things all year round as long as you planted the right thing for the right season.” Buxton said.

The club is still debating what to do with the produce from their garden. Buxton plans to use it in some of her biology classes. “Many of the plants are in the same family, and you can learn quite a bit about the characteristics of this one plant family.” Buxton said. However, she added, “I imagine we’ll sell some of the produce to make money to go back towards continuing the garden,” and also to educate the rest of the school on “how organic gardening and sustainable gardening is done.” Golikova and Hitchcock explained a similar path for their produce, describing a type of “Menlo Farmer’s Market.”