The tomatoes are growing large enough that smiles appeared and shouts rang out when Sugarland Elementary students found them hidden behind leaves at Tuesday’s Inside/Out Garden Party.

Sponsors, students and the community were welcomed into the garden for a party celebrating the progress of the self-sustaining agriculture project and all those who worked to make it a success.

The garden contains herbs, flowers, fruits and vegetables. It also contains bordered paths, picnic tables and tool chests, the latter two items handmade over the course of the school year by Westgate High School students.

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The garden’s central focus is a tall pergola, still waiting for foliage so the trellised arbor can provide a shaded walkway through the heart of the beds.

Fifth-grade student and garden team member Ray-Breinne Gibson could not answer many questions about the various flowers growing in the garden because, by her own admission, she specialized in vegetables and fruit.

“I helped plant blueberries, tomatoes, sunflowers, cabbage and strawberries,” Gibson said. “I like strawberries the best because they’re good.”

Begun in October, the garden progressed in increments and enjoyed the assistance of numerous people and organizations, including the New Iberia Optimist Club, master gardeners from the LSU AgCenter program, the Iberia Parish School Board maintenance department, parents, local gardeners, teachers and students.

“This is not the end, this is the beginning,” said Susan Hester Edmunds, Optimist Club president and a community volunteer who has been with the project since it began. “This year anybody could come into the garden, and next year we’re hoping to integrate it into the curriculum throughout the school classrooms.”

Kay Renard, a garden coordinator and reading teacher at Sugarland, pointed out that teachers already have been integrating the garden into their science classes. She sees the garden continuing to prosper.

“We hope to begin producing more and more vegetables,” Renard said.

A garden coordinator and reading teacher at Sugarland, Renard has been a driving force in the project throughout its development. “Some of the vegetables we’ve grown here the kids have never eaten before,” she said. “We hope to grow more and have more for them.”

Renard said that if other schools would like to create their own educational gardens, the group would be glad to share its expertise, but for now their focus is on maximizing the benefit of this garden for the students at Sugarland.

Sugarland Elementary School Principal Virginia Lewis said there are tentative plans in place for using the garden as an open-air classroom.

“The organization University Women are already talking about literary activities,” Lewis said.

“They very much want to use this as part of their program.”