Lincoln Cultivates Award Winning Garden

If you ever visit Upper School Math teacher Mary Lincoln by her desk in the math department, ask her about the picture of the lush green garden on her cabinet.

That’s her garden, grown in her own little backyard plot and a participant in the Macalester Groveland Alley Garden Awards program. “[The award]’s meant to be a welcoming of neighbors,” Lincoln said. “It’s to beautify alleys and it’s fun to show people.”

Lincoln grows flowers, basil, and tomatoes in her garden. She has also tried growing garlic, carrots, raspberries, and blackberries, but with less success. However, she hopes to try growing garlic again in the future.

Last summer, Lincoln wished to outreach to the Mac-Groveland community and helped an elderly woman with gardening. “She had this garden that was really beautiful but her husband had died a few years before that and I think she had just stopped gardening,” Lincoln said.

The woman’s garden was overgrown with violets and other plants. “So I just went and cleaned up the yard,” Lincoln said. “We created this great relationship where we just got to know each other through growing stuff.”

Lincoln was glad to work on someone else’s garden and take a break from her own. She will continue to help the woman this summer, but due to her friend’s health, it will not be as intensive as last year.

For Lincoln, much of gardening is trial and error. “Some years I get some insect I haven’t gotten before, some years the bunnies eat everything,” she said. “I got lucky with a really sunny spot.” Lincoln’s confidence comes from her parents, who are both avid gardeners, and she has been gardening for almost two dozen summers.

To keep her garden environmentally friendly, Lincoln doesn’t use pesticides. She composts, “which is a really easy way to get rid of food and give nutrients to your garden,” she said.

This year, Lincoln started basil and marigolds indoors and cleaned off a flatbed to prepare planting daylilies outside. She uses basil to make fresh pesto and salads. “Pesto is one of my dishes I bring to a lot of things. It’s vegetarian, it’s healthy, it’s right out of my garden,” Lincoln said.

“My kids have been eating tomatoes off the vine since they were little. I think it’s a completely separate fruit from the tomatoes you get in the store.” Lincoln also occasionally brings in tomatoes for St. Paul Academy and Summit School faculty to eat.

Students harvest memories and snacks from home soil

April showers bring May flowers, and despite the chillier weather this year, students have begun preparing their gardens.

For junior Frank Nahurski, an interest for gardening started online early this year: “I was looking through all of these neat-o burrito seeds and that’s where I saw these black krim tomatoes, which are supposed to be so juicy and good, and these chocolate habaneros…I was like, Wow, and how cool would it be to eat that?” Nahurski said.

Nahurski was also interested in growing county fair cucumbers and royal purple beans. He bought seeds online for a couple dollars, and “once they’re fully grown, I’ll have more than what I know what to do with.”

Currently, he grows plants in two-to-three gallon pots in his basement under full spectrum fluorescent lights and is gradually transitioning them outside.

Nahurski used these plants for his chemistry project a few months ago, entitled “Nitrogen in an Aquaponics System.” He and lab partner, junior Jonte Claiborne, used the plants to filter fish tanks.

Nahurski has also given some plants away to friends. Habaneros are famous for their level of spiciness, and senior John Fauver, who loves spicy food, received a small bush as an end-of-the-year going away present.

For sophomore Mattie Daub, gardening is a small but memorable deal. “We do it right by our garage in this tiny little strip by the road, so it’s not a garden garden…,’” Daub said. She grows cucumbers, whole beans, tomatoes, and herbs with her mother.

In contrast to Daub and Nahurski, freshman Emily Bookless prefers to grow mostly flowers. She used to live on a farm, where she grew them in the shade under trees. “We didn’t want them to die with too much sunshine,” Bookless said.

Now, Bookless and her family manage an apartment building, so they organize the landscaping and garden there. “Often what we do is we’ll take little three ounce cups and we’ll put dirt in them and poke holes in the bottom, and we’ll start off the plants in those,” she said. This method gives flowers a better chance of surviving through unfavorable weather.

The late spring has been a recurring challenge for gardeners. Sophomore Daniela Tiedemann’s raspberry bushes “look kind of dead right now,” she said. Her dad brought over the bushes from his childhood home, but Tiedemann cares for them.  “Ever since I refused to let my dad kill the bees’ nest in the back of the raspberry bushes, I’ve been awarded for my nature-savvy by having to pick all of the raspberries and take care of them,” Tiedemann said. Part of the reward includes being able to eat as many raspberries as she likes.

Once fruit and vegetables ripen, students have big plans for how to use the harvest. “I was actually thinking about combining the peppers and pickles to get me some spicy pickles,” Nahurski said.

If Tiedemann doesn’t eat all of the raspberries, “my dad makes raspberry jam with them,” she said.
Nonetheless, that stage in the process is still a long way off. In the meantime, Nahurski makes wooden name placards for some of the quicker growing plants. “I have one black krim tomato that is way ahead of all my other plants,” he said as he colored a border on the name placard for the plant, “Joffrey,” during his interview.

Bookless enjoys how gardening helps her relax and enjoy the outdoors. “It’s really nice to see them bloom and stuff after all the work you’ve put towards the plants,” she said.

Hopefully, this summer will reward student gardeners with plenty of green leaves, fresh fruit, and colorful blossoms.