The produce garden tucked away in a corner of Venice's Mark Twain Middle School is especially tranquil these days. A semi-circle of hay bales, once a crowded outdoor classroom, has sat abandoned for nearly a year. Plastic bins full of soil cultivators and kid-sized cotton gloves gather dust in a nearby tool shed.
Still, the garden itself is thriving, with ready-to-harvest fruits and vegetables scattered across the half-acre plot.
Before Mark Twain closed last March, hundreds of students would help plant seeds, weed, harvest and even cook and eat the produce grown in the garden. Now, the only person maintaining the place is Paula Sirola, the school's master gardener.