I did a seance with Tim Russert last night and he helped me to write this.

DURHAM, N.C., August 6, 2009 -- This Saturday, August 8, Bountiful Backyards and parent, student, and neighborhood volunteers at George Watts Montessori Magnet will hold their third and final work day installing a new Edible Schoolyard.  Included in the garden will be a dry creek bed plant 'filter', 75 square foot vegetable garden, forest floor edibles, culinary herbs, and berry bushes.

About 30 volunteers spent last Saturday digging a 150-square-foot rain garden that puts to good use the many thousands of gallons of water washing off the school’s large roof.

Resting at the highest point of the 1,500-square-foot Edible Garden, the rain garden will store water in-ground for irrigation, but that’s not all it will do, explains Sarah Vroom of Bountiful Backyards.

 “It will also create a habitat for the edible plants, such as blueberries, amphibian wildlife, and beneficial insects,” Vroom says. “The school’s students will learn of the impact their little rain garden is making on our collective watershed.”

This Edible Schoolyard will allow the school's 350 students a chance for experiential learning, in the middle of the city.   The kids will learn how useful plants are grown, enjoy tastings in the garden, do more hands-on math and science projects, and spend more time outside.

Work continues this Saturday from 8AM-1PM as the group completes and plants the rain garden, digs annual vegetable beds, and plants a range of fruiting and flowering perennials.

 For more information about the Edible Schoolyard project, please contact Bountiful Backyards at 919.619.9862, or Alice Bumgarner, chair of the PTA’s Edible Garden committee, at 919.680.8674.