Growing Skills, Stewardship, and Community: WSP Builds a New Garden Pantry

There’s meaningful work underway in the gardens at WSP — and it’s more than planting, harvesting, and tending the soil. Thanks to the hands-on leadership of Earth Arts teacher Phil Dwyer, students are helping build a new outdoor “Garden Pantry” at our Mountain View campus, a dedicated space for processing and preparing the bounty from our campus gardens and orchard.

Once complete, the Garden Pantry will support drying, sprouting, juicing, jamming, canning, cooking, and baking, giving students a deeper connection to the full cycle of their food. Even our blacksmithing students are getting involved, forging custom tools and accessories for the space.

To bring this project to life sustainably and affordably, Mr. Dwyer and his students are doing much of the work themselves. Together, they’ve relocated sheds, prepared the site, and installed a newly completed paver floor. With a bit of resourcefulness — and generous support from our community, including funds raised through the Food Justice Initiative and contributions from friends beyond the school — the project continues to grow piece by piece.

Next up, students are expanding the open-air roofing using thoughtful tarp extensions, and they will soon recycle donated redwood fence boards to build cabinetry and counters. A donated granite table has also found a new life here and will soon serve as a durable work island. Plans are now underway to add a small sidewalk to connect the patio to the main pavement, allowing our new lunch program’s food carts to roll easily to and from the space — another example of how this project will serve daily life on campus.

This work reflects the heart of the Waldorf curriculum: students learn by doing. Gardening at WSP is not an add-on; it is woven into the educational experience, nurturing practical skills, ecological understanding, patience, teamwork, and care for the living world.

That spirit of stewardship is already on display every Thursday afternoon, when the sixth-grade hosts its weekly Farm Stand (3:10–3:30 p.m.). After tending the gardens and orchard themselves, students proudly offer seasonal harvests like lacinato kale, potatoes, green and bulb onions, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, pineapple guavas, pomegranate, and charming flower posies — all grown right here on campus.

Every shovel full of soil, every harvest, every homemade bite brings its own lesson. In the Garden Pantry, students are not just growing food; they’re growing confidence, curiosity, and a lasting connection to the earth.