Nutrition education via gardening

Although the dark skies meant turnout was lower than expected, members of the Hurley K-12 Garden to Market program continued working in the garden behind the school on Wednesday with help from members of the University of Wisconsin’s Iron County Extension Office.

The students weeded the raised beds where they are growing peas, rhubarb and other annual and perennial plants as well as repaired the plastic mesh fence that surrounds the garden to keep deer and other animals out of the produce. The participating students will later harvest the plants and sell them at the Iron County Farmers Market.

The Garden to Market program is “a youth-driven service and leadership program for students in grades five through eight. Being part of the Garden to Market program will allow students to gain knowledge and experience in areas such as leadership, gardening, marketing, design and money management, all while having fun and making new friends,” according to a flyer for the program.

Participants also go on a number of field trips related to agriculture, including visiting Green Bay’s farmers market last year and visiting Will Allen’s Growing Power program in Milwaukee after hearing Allen later this month speak at the Ironwood Theatre.

Sabastian Yaeger, one of the students participating in the program, said while he likes the entire process of gardening, he especially likes harvesting what he grew.

“I like eating what I’ve planted,” said Yaeger.

Rissa Lane and Jacob Berlyn, two of the extension office’s summer interns, helped the students with the gardening. Prior to going outside to the garden, Lane and Berlyn led two quick activities designed to further their independent projects they are working on completing during their internships.

The projects serve as a link between the work the extension office is doing and UW Madison’s Nutrition, Environment and Food Systems for Empowerment program — which both are a part of — which seeks to improve living conditions in Ethiopia by empowering young people to take more responsibility for their health. Berlyn explained that while the program’s primary focus is on Ethiopia, there is enough overlap to apply to communities in rural Wisconsin. The local communities also serve as a version of a pilot program for the Ethiopian program.

“Looking through the lessons (that the program teaches), there are twenty-something lessons. They aren’t all going able to be (translated to Wisconsin communities) because some of them are more specific to sanitation and water issues,” said Berlyn. “In general, they are guided toward youth in any community.”

Berlyn’s project involves developing a promotional video of the Hurley school’s garden and evaluation tools for the extension office to use to assess the garden.