Pumpkins, tomatoes and basil were the dominant crops harvested from Dexter's Creekside Intermediate School garden this school year with help from sixth-graders who spread the soil, transplanted the seedlings, and cleared the beds.

Several teachers are hoping to make the garden part of a school program that would include students planting, tending and harvesting the garden, then learning to prepare what they've harvested in the school's kitchens.

Tonight at 6 p.m., the Late Fall Soup Dinner in the Creekside cafeteria will help sow the seeds toward such a program. Alex Young, a Dexter parent and head chef and managing partner of Zingerman's Roadhouse, will prepare a multi-course meal, and all proceeds will go to the Creekside Garden and Kitchen program for students.

Planning for the garden program began last February.

"At first, it was just a meeting about having a garden, then it blossomed into trying to have our own garden and cooking education program based on The Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, California," said Creekside art teacher Jane Montero, referring to the program started by Chef Alice Waters.

Montero received a grant last May to attend the two-day Edible Schoolyard Academy in Berkely, Calif. and said it was "truly life-changing."

She is working with sixth grade social studies teacher Mary Seymour and para-professional Laurel Livingston on the garden, which consists of four raised 4-foot-by-8-foot beds. They are also starting raised flower beds and a compost pile.

Seymour believes that the garden project is important because it teaches students where food comes from and teaches them the value of hard work and the feeling of doing something beneficial for others.

"We study ancient civilizations which couldn't begin to form until the wandering involved with hunting and gathering was supplemented by a steady food supply, allowing people to pretty much settle in one place because they figured out how to grow their food." she says.

Seymour said that working in the school garden helps students understand what it is like to produce enough food for a village as well as understanding what their ancient ancestors' daily lives were like.

Montero and Seymour hope to integrate the Garden and Kitchen program lessons with nutrition, social studies, science, poetry and art.

The Creekside school has six kitchens, that formerly were used for Life Skills classes when Creekside was the high school.

Tonight's dinner will feature such tasty treats as fresh pumpkin bread, pasture-raised turkey and wild rice soup, borscht with sour cream, Zingerman's Bakehouse bread, a lamb and chicken stew, hot and cold cider and apple cobbler with locally grown apples.

Diners need to bring their own soup bowl, soup spoon, small plate, fork, mug, and napkin. Tickets are available on Pay Schools from the Dexter Community School's homepage at www.dexter.k12.mi.us.