Gwinnett Daily Post

Special Photo Rosalie Tubre, master gardener, helps fifth grade students at White Oak Elementary School in Sugar Hill rope off the raised vegetable bed outside the school to determine where the plants will go in a new garden.

SUGAR HILL -- Students of White Oak Elementary School are all pitching in to get started on a vegetable garden that all grade levels can use.

Lesley Reilly with the school's parent teacher association said agriculture isn't the only lesson students will learn in the process.

Fifth-graders last week walked out to the new garden beds with measuring tape, pencils and paper.

"It ties in with their fifth-grade curriculum," Reilly said. "They're going to do the measuring and laying out of the ropes to rope off the garden by sections" to determine where plants will go."

This week, Reilly said second-graders "who study plants and habitats are going to help actually planting the vegetables."

Reilly, who chairs the PTA's environmental education committee, said the raised vegetable beds at the school are a work in progress.

"We've done a lot of fundraising activities that's how we've gotten the initial money to get this off the ground," she said.

Reilly said another parent involved with PTA has plans to donate and build more 4- by 20-foot raised vegetable beds so that each grade level can take ownership of one.

"We should have those by March," she said. "Eventually, we hope to be able to collect rainwater to irrigate the gardens."

Reilly said the school's PTA as well as school administrators have worked closely on the project.