History and Vision

The idea for the FHS community garden began in 2014 by former teacher Steven Casperite and students, Jon Harger, Cole Sanders and Taylor Lowery. Mr. Casperite told his idea to the newly hired science and health teacher Katie Cantrell and she was eager to become involved.

The design of the garden was adapted from the 7th Day Adventist Community Garden in Auburn. The students decided to dig out trenches of the Foresthill clayey soil and refill with top soil. Jon Harger, Mr. Casperite and Ms. Cantrell worked together and received a $5200.00 in grant money to help with the start up costs. Jon Harger designed the irrigation system and ordered all of the supplies and equipment for irrigation and fencing. After his initial designs, Jon went to Cal Poly for college, but we are forever thankful for all of the hard work that he put into organizing and designing the garden.

During the 2015-2016 school year, the garden was built by the FHS students and Mr. Casperite and Ms. Cantrell. The first crops were planted in the spring of 2016 and our first harvest was the fall of 2016. We had a very successful harvest and the garden has been very successful ever since. During the harvest, vegetables and fruits are donated to our local food bank, Elijah's Jar, to provide healthy,organic vegetables to the community.

The plans for the future are to add pollinating native plants around the fencing, to continue to use the garden to teach about agriculture in our science and health classes. We would like to expand our connection with the Foresthill Divide School and allow them to offer a gardening elective in our garden and continue to offer field trips to the garden for their students.

Since Elijah's Jar can not use all of the vegetables are garden produces, we would like to add a canning component to our garden and possibly a marketing and sales division. This will give our students valuable skills for the future,