The BCS Garden is a Towering Legacy

Butler Catholic School is growing fast – especially when it comes to the school garden!

With a month of learning in the books, classes have had the opportunity to work in and help build the garden. Thanks largely to Master Gardener Rae Harrison, our new on-site director of environmental programming, students across all grade levels have been able to follow Miss
Rae’s motto of “hands in the dirt.”

But on Sept. 15, students left the dirt behind to learn about a new type of gardening: aeroponic.

With proper equipment–such as an aeroponics tower–and a suitable environment, plants can grow with just air and water! 

Now, students at BCS get to see that first-hand, thanks to a generous donation of $1,100 from the Butler Garden Club.

“They have been supporters and donors of the BCS garden for years now,” Miss Rae said. “We honestly couldn't do some of the programming that we do without them.”

Seeing how the vertical structure could bring the seedling-to-harvest cycle entirely inside the classroom, purchasing a tower for BCS became one of her first goals for this school year.

“We’re thrilled about it!” explained Kathy Frederick, membership chair for the Butler Garden Club. “We’re anxious to see what it does for the students.”

Since 2019, the club has ardently supported the garden at BCS by donating roughly $4,000 to various projects and events. This includes $700 in scholarships to the first BCS Summer Garden Camp, held in July and August for area students! 

At BCS, the garden plays an important role. It isn’t just for growing food to be used in the cafeteria or for special school functions. It’s for teaching students about where and how their food is grown. And the Tower Garden won’t just help students learn about vertical agriculture. It will also be used to help them compare the processes of traditional and experimental farming.

“One of the Tower Garden claims is that it grows plants three times faster with 30% more yields,” Miss Rae noted. “We can actually put that to the test with our geodesic greenhouse!”

The geodesic dome greenhouse–built this spring in the school garden–uses a passive solar design to allow plants to grow year-round. 

“We'll start seedlings at the same time under our grow lights, and then when they are ready, we will plant them out in the greenhouse and in the Tower Garden,” Miss Rae elaborated. “The race is on!”