Regenerative Gardening
The entire garden is pesticide-free and "no-dig. Regenerative farming techniques are employed throughout the garden: the layering of the soil with natural amendments, seaweed mulch, and foliar sprays are applied. Spring planting days are held in May for the children (with the help of Garden Club volunteers) to plant vegetables in the ten raised beds and flower beds.
Educational Programs
Classes are taught in conservation, horticulture, and ecology with an age-appropriate curriculum throughout the summer. Children from COMO Summer Camp tend the garden alongside garden club members and community members during the summer months. The children harvest the produce and cook their bounty in the COMO kitchen.
Pollinator & Vegetable beds
With each passing year, more and more local children learn practical gardening skills and understand and appreciate nature and where our food comes from. One of the garden's goals is to diminish the "nature deficit disorder" that affects youth. And maybe a love of vegetables! This entire garden is managed and maintained by SGC members.
History
In the late 1990s, this enchanting Children's Learning Garden site was a junk-filled vacant lot. In collaboration with the Stonington Garden Club, the Stonington Community Association (COMO) began envisioning the transformation of the space into a children's garden. The garden club raised $10,000 in 1996, and work started on a garden designed to teach children about gardening and instill a love of and respect for nature. As you enter the garden, there is a mailbox for letters addressed to Mother Nature, which garden club members answer.!
Renovation
By 2016, the garden needed a new design. Volunteers from the garden club began a two-year fund-raising campaign for improvements, and two fundraisers contributed $23,000 to the project. The club initiated hardscaping: the grounds regraded to prevent ponding, sprinklers, fencing and drip irrigation were installed. Ten raised beds were built and the pond was relocated. For the mobility impaired, a taller raised bed features herbs and sits near the edge of the wood-chipped raised bed area.
Built together
Club members and friends installed new sod, and at the far end of the garden, a "roundel" was formed for outdoor teaching space and a sprinkler for the dog days of summer.
Local craftspeople, merchants, artists, friends, members of the SGC, and the local Boy Scout troop all pitched in to donate and help make the garden come to life. Now the COMO Children’s Learning Garden is not only a place to learn but a beautiful respite for walkers, visitors, garden “aficionados,” as well as the whole community to enjoy seasonally.
