Blog Post

Maury High School Garden

Bob Kelly '14 • Sep 07, 2022

The Maury High School Garden was created ten years ago to provide students with an opportunity to learn basic gardening practices and how to develop a wildlife habitat for butterflies and native bees. The garden is several interconnected projects and demonstrations located in the portion of the student parking lot that was used for drivers’ education and now stores some of the school buses. These garden projects range from square-foot gardening using discarded tires, spring and summer vegetables in raised beds, fruit trees, a chicken coop with six egg-laying hens, and a small apiary consisting of several beehives. Produce and eggs from the garden are donated to the students, staff of Maury High, and the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia.


Neal George is the Maury High teacher who guides the dedicated band of 20 to 30 students who help build, maintain, and improve the gardens. In June 2022 Neal was invited to speak to the Ghent Neighborhood League about how the neighborhood could help the school rebuild after several acts of vandalism which occurred during and after the COVID shutdown. After that informative presentation, I decided to help organize a joint Ghent Neighborhood League and Norfolk Master Gardener event to get the Maury garden up and running for the new year while teaching members of the neighborhood and students about basic gardening techniques. At the same time, the Neighborhood League requested donations of used gardening tools for the students.

In late August, a group of ten Norfolk Master Gardeners and seven students and neighborhood volunteers met to remove diseased plants from the vegetable beds, clear out the brush and weeds from the pollinator gardens, and prune the overgrown fruit tree located in one corner of the parking lot. Several Norfolk Master Gardeners were also residents of the local neighborhood. In addition to basic instruction on how to recognize squash borers and tomato worms provided by Jane Walsh, Susan Dudley and others, Monica Shephard demonstrated how to espalier a fruit tree, Will Redfern and I led volunteers in brush and weed removal and my team also rebuilt a stone border around the pollinator garden. After the event, Neal George expressed his sincere appreciation for the great work that was accomplished and for the large number of new and used tools that were donated.

Given the success of this initial event, plans are being made to conduct more events like this during the 2022-2023 school year. The intent is to provide the Maury High student gardeners with instruction on how to properly establish and maintain vegetable and pollinator gardens, how to care for fruit trees, and to familiarize the neighbors of Maury High School with the operation and maintenance of an urban chicken farm and apiary.

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