Bellaire Student Garden ready for summer program

BELLAIRE — When schools closed in March, the Bellaire Youth Initiative was forced to immediately suspend its winter programming.

However, as the quarantine progressed, so did the planning for BYI’s summer program at the Bellaire Student Garden, in cooperation with the Bellaire Rotary and the Juniper Garden Club. At this time last year, the garden was initially built and fenced so that students could begin to plant and get their hands dirty. This year, however, the preparing and planting had to start before students were allowed to be there. The groups mustered a gang of gardeners who took over and got the garden ready for the learning process that will take place there. Dozens of tomato and zucchini and pepper plants have been planted and mulched. Flowers take up the edge of the garden and will eventually be arranged and delivered.

Chris Smith was one of the Rotarians who spent some time digging up the soil and adding amendments to make it as fertile as possible. Smith, who works at Bellaire Hardware, says his motivation is simple. 

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