photo by: Dylan Lysen/Lawrence Journal-World

A garden on the east side of Free State High School's campus recently grew out of a student-led initiative at the school.

On the east side of Free State High School sits a garden featuring rows of plants and trees. Within them are growing tomatoes, apples and watermelons, among other produce.

Those plants represent a class project that has turned into a multiyear student-led initiative to tend a permaculture garden that benefits the local land as well as the local community.

The Lawrence school board recently gave formal approval for the project, which also includes an outdoor classroom and a gazebo, the Journal-World has reported. But the garden itself has been growing for some time, current and former Free State students related to the project told the Journal-World recently.

As a permaculture garden, the students said the focus was to grow native Kansas plants in their natural habitat, which makes the garden more efficient and sustainable. The ideology of a permaculture garden also includes growing produce that benefits the community that surrounds it.

“It’s using the land in its most natural state to benefit you and everyone else in the most efficient way possible,” Free State senior Elijah Ditto said. “Everything is set up to be super efficient and as useful as possible.”

Maya Sabatini, a former Free State student who was part of the founding gardeners, said the project began as a class activity in Julie Schwarting’s environmental science classes in the spring of 2020. Schwarting said the goal was to design and create a rain garden that would help reduce runoff in the area while also supporting a food garden.

But the project has gone on to be much more, as students in her class wanted to continue the mission outside of the class project. Sabatini said a group of students who wanted to continue on with the project, including herself, kept the project alive and it eventually became a new asset to the school’s campus.

Schwarting said those students went on to tour other permaculture gardens and received a crash course in learning how to navigate city permit codes for building such structures. While plants continue to grow in the garden, Schwarting said future plans call for building storage structures for the students’ tools. The garden will also continue to be part of her class curriculum, she said.

“I am extremely grateful to have worked as a team with such amazing students,” Schwarting said in an email. “Their hope and enthusiasm inspires all of us.”

photo by: Contributed

In this undated photo, Free State High School students work to build the beds for a permaculture garden that now grows produce on the school’s campus.

Additionally, some students caring for the garden are doing so in their free time. Chaney Finkeldei, a current leader for the garden, said students tend to the garden about once a week, even during the summer when school is out of session.

Kaylen Flachsbarth, who is also a senior and current leader for the garden, said she was proud of the work she and her classmates have done, especially since most of the planning and work has been done during a global pandemic.

“I feel like it shows we can totally do what we put our minds to,” she said.

Along with the permaculture garden’s focus of using the land in its native plant, it also aims to provide for the local community. The way the Free State garden works to achieve that goal is by growing produce that can be used to help feed students and possibly the Lawrence community at large.

Some of the produce has been donated to the school’s cafeteria to be used for student meals. The overall plan for the garden also called for donating some produce to food banks. Finkeldei said she enjoys seeing other students traverse the garden and realize they could pick a fresh apple to eat.

Noting she didn’t have any garden skills prior to the project, Flachsbarth said she was “over the moon” about producing the fruits and vegetables for the school’s students.

“Now we have watermelons, which is super cool, and I know that will be a fan favorite,” Flachsbarth said.

photo by: Dylan Lysen/Lawrence Journal-World

Produce in the Free State High School permaculture garden includes tomatoes and watermelons.

The students said they were proud to be part of a project that will be part of the high school for years to come. But some also said they originally feared the next generation of students may not be interested in keeping the garden going, partly because caring for the garden outside of normal school work is similar to a part-time job, Ditto said. The group started a garden club at the school to help recruit students.

But Sabatini, who is now a student at Boston University, said she believes the garden will continue to attract students. She said before she graduated she felt the same fear, but she has since seen a new crop of students come in and take the garden to new heights.

“Obviously, you guys did and you’ve been doing an amazing job,” Sabatini told the current students.