There’s no way around it. If you want a decent fall garden, you have to do some serious sweating in July and August.

I long ago accepted that regular hand watering, weeding, mulching and pruning sessions at dawn and dusk are neces-sary if I want fall tomatoes, peppers and basil for my dinner table, and garden soil that’s still alive when it comes time to plant cool weather crops like carrots and lettuce in October.

Of late, my quest to keep gardening through the heat of summer has become more urgent: partly because of the increasingly hot summers, but mainly because I’m now responsible for a 6,000 square foot garden at Smith Ele-mentary School in southeast Austin.

I teach garden and cooking classes there during the regular school year. And a crispy brown dead garden at the start of the school year is not the best way to engage kids in the wonders of nature.

I learned that the hard way my first year at Smith. I was assured at the time that my students would help me clean and revive the hot neglected summer garden as part of their after-school garden class time.

Well, considering the Smith garden was then mostly Ber-muda and Johnson grass and overgrown rosemary bushes growing in hard-packed clay, we did OK, but it’s an exper-ience I’d rather not repeat.

Comments from some of the older students pretty much echoed my concerns: 'Where are the butterflies?' 'Is this supposed to be fun?' 'This is too hard.' That was five years ago, and the Smith garden has come a long way. Now, thanks to the school’s commitment to summer maintenance, students can begin the new school year with up-close encounters with Swallowtail, Monarch, and Queen butterflies sipping nectar from blue mist flowers; lady bugs feasting on aphids; burgundy stalks of amaranth stand-ing as tall as corn; winter squash ripening on wandering vines; bright green basil leaves ready to be picked and pounded into a pesto snack; and cherry tomatoes ready to eat by the handful.

A few weeks later, after they’ve had a chance to fall a little bit in love with the garden, the after-school students start learning how to care for it. And before long, some of them decide they actually like the work of maintaining a garden, regardless of the weather.

My hope has been that one day a student who’s been smitten by the garden might be willing to come back during summer break to help me keep this special place alive until fall.

That finally happened this summer. Pre-K student Scarlett Reyes visited the garden a few times during the school year with her teacher Sarah Ford.

When we later sent out notes asking for summer garden helpers, Scarlett’s parents responded.

Scarlett, her Mom and Dad (Priscilla and Alex), her little sister (Rosely), and her baby brother (Julien) have joined me 4 or 5 times to help with garden chores, including mulching tomatoes, peppers and eggplants held over from spring; scuffle-hoeing weeds; hand-watering vegetables and fruit trees; planting field peas and beans; and harvesting tomatoes, purple hull peas, and peppers. (See photo above)

A win-win for all — the garden, the kids, their parents, and me.❦