TA News

It’s summer harvest season in the school garden and students in TA’s Garden Camp were there to help. Open to rising 7-9th graders from Thetford and surrounding towns, eight enthusiastic campers and two student interns joined the school’s first-ever garden camp this August.

Campers participated in fun, garden-based activities and games around TA’s campus and community, kicking off the week with team building and a field trip to pick blueberries at Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford. Led by school garden coordinator Ehrin Lingeman, campers harvested garlic, prepared beds for fall planting, dug potatoes, built raised beds, and planted strawberries for next year.

They also did some nature crafting: solar dyeing with native plants from the garden and the surrounding woods and foraging for flower crowns. Each day, campers made garden-based treats like popsicles, quick pickles, blueberry jam, and salsa. Students worked hard in the August heat, earning a well-deserved afternoon field trip to Treasure Island on Lake Fairlee. To finish off the week, campers planted four large blueberry bushes in the garden so next year, TA will have its own blueberry harvest.

With the help of a generous grant from the Vital Communities’ Upper Valley Teaching Place Collaborative, TA was able to keep this summer camp financially affordable for families. Ehrin Lingeman was excited by the camp’s success: “We look forward to hosting even more summer vacation garden programming for our TA community in the future!”