Scout, troop members build raised beds at 2 public gardens

Quacking ducks wandered by in procession as hip-high potato plants, chesthigh tomatoes and peppers, garlic and kale reached for the sun in the garden at the former Franklin Primary Center garden in Munhall.

The vegetables are growing in raised planting beds built by Eagle Scout candidate Zach Toth of Munhall and members of Boy Scout Troop 4 of Homestead Park United Methodist Church.

The garden, which was planted before the school year ended by students at Park Elementary and Steel Valley Middle schools, is used to teach Steel Valley students about gardening and where their food comes from. Environmental coordinator Christine Schott, who manages the garden for the district, said teachers create lesson plans around what is in the plot.

District students with special needs who attend school for an extended year have been coming to the garden to help weed as well as to sample produce ranging from peas and peppers to basil and chives.

“I have never seen a potato plant in my life!” one boy exclaimed during a tour this month.

Zach, 16, of Munhall, is a rising senior at Steel Valley High School and created the raised beds as his Eagle Scout project.

The planting beds at the former Franklin Primary Center used to be two bricks high, he said, but the new ones he installed are a foot tall. He built six 3-by-12-foot beds plus four 3-by-20-foot beds at the Franklin garden. A 30-inch-high raised vegetable bed also was built for planting by students in wheelchairs.

In addition, Zach built eight 4-by-12-foot vegetable beds in the Amity Harvest Community Garden in Homestead.

The prospective Eagle Scout said about eight to 10 members of his Scout Troop, four to five Scout leaders and friends, his family and Steel Valley band members spent about 280 hours working on the gardens.

Mrs. Schott said animals are less likely to climb up into the raised beds to get food. That, plus fencing and the aerated soil Zach put into the beds have combined to increase the yield of the Amity Harvest Garden by 100 percent, she said. The yield at the Franklin garden has increased by about 50 percent, she added.

Mrs. Schott said the Amity garden has corn, basil, peppers, tomatoes, radishes, carrots, sweet potatoes, zucchini and winter squash, kale, Brussels sprouts, onions and other vegetables.

She said the produce in the Franklin garden usually goes to volunteers who work in the garden at 9:30 a.m. Tuesdays, and the food from the Amity garden goes to volunteer families and others who work in that garden at 6 p.m. Mondays.

Mrs. Schott said volunteers picked about 5 pounds of green beans in the Amity plot this month.

Zach recommends Scouting to other boys.

“You meet a lot of friends,” he said. “[Scouting] teaches you how to motivate yourself and set goals and to reach those goals.”

After high school, Zach hopes to study engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.