FFA students grow food for pantry

WILLIAMSBURG — With the help of a $3,200 grant, a couple of Williamsburg FFA students are learning about growing vegetables while helping feed people in the community.

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Williamsburg School Superintendent Chad Garber and his wife are in charge of a food pantry at the Williamsburg Junior-Senior High School, said Amy Harrison, the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach 4-H Ag Outreach Educator for Iowa County.

The school district had purchased a house for a day care for school staff, and that property had a garden plot on it.

When Harrison found an email about the ISU Extension’s Growing Together grant, which awards up to $4,000 for local projects, she contacted Garber about using the money to grow food for the food pantry.

“I found that in November, and the deadline was early December,” said Harrison. The food pantry garden project was awarded $3,200.

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The grant requires collaboration between a non-profit organization, ISU Extension and a Master Gardener.

“It turns out the criteria was perfect for what Dr. Garber wanted to get going with this garden,” Harrison said. “You kind of have to have a goal with a garden, and it has to kind of benefit the community.”

“[FFA] also wanted to get something going with this garden,” said Harrison. “So they’ve been doing a lot of the dirt work.

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“I told them my thumb is black,” said Harrison. “I can totally be the money side of it,” she said, but she can’t grow anything.

FFA

The garden serves as an FFA supervised agricultural experience project for sophomores Lydia Portwood and Matthew Wille. They record growing times, pest problems, weed problems and how much the garden produces, said Bridget Mahoney, Williamsburg agriculture education teacher and FFA adviser.

“If they keep up the project, they can apply for awards,” she said.

“Extension and Dr. Garber found the grant,” said Mahoney. “I put it out to all my freshman students.” Freshmen would have more years to work with the project.

“They’re doing a really great job,” said Mahoney. “And I think they are learning a lot about patience and time management.”

“It kind of just seemed something good,” said Lydia Portwood, one of the students who took on the project.

Gardening is not foreign to the Portwood, of Oxford, who is beginning her sophomore year in high school. “I do a lot of work out at my parents’ garden,” she said.

Portwood has used some ideas from her family garden in the FFA plot. “We had an arch and the cucumbers would grow on it” so they wouldn’t be “all over the place,” Portwood said.

Portwood and Wille, created a metal trellis for the cucumbers in their FFA garden, giving them the same results.

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Portwood’s father tilled the ground, and Portwood and Wille put in plants — which rabbits began eating. Portwood took some plants home and nursed them back to health before returning them to the FFA garden.

The students installed plastic fencing, but rabbits began gnawing through it, so they added a metal rabbit fence.

“We’ve harvested two little tomatoes already,” said Portwood., “And we’ve got some beans coming on.”

“Next year we’re thinking about doing raised beds,” said Portwood.

The peppers aren’t doing well, said Wille. He’s not sure why. “We think it might be ground nutrients.”

Plants need specific nutrients and different levels of nutrients, Wille said. Getting the soil right is key to having a productive garden.

The tomatoes are healthy. “We have several different breeds,” said Wille. The Fourth of July tomatoes are bred to be ripe by the Fourth of July, though Wille and Portwood started their plants a little late for that.

The students are also growing classicas, a smaller tomato shaped like an eggplant.

Tomatoes like hotter weather, said Wille. Putting a cage around the plants gives them stability.

Wille brought some homemade cages, fabricated with rebar, from home. They’re a little tall for the classicas, he said. They were made for cherry tomatoes, which grow taller.

“I’ve always been kind of into gardening,” said Wille. His grandparents and his mother have gardens on their farms every year. “It’s bred into me.”

Wille not only takes care of vegetables, but he helps tend flowers and indoor plants at home. “I have quite a green thumb,” he said.

“It’s a slow process,” Wille said, but it’s exciting. Taking vegetables to the fair to compete with other produce is rewarding, he said.

“The one cool thing that I’ve taken away from this is this is something I can always come back to,” Wille said. Even if he pursues a vocation other than farming, he can always return to gardening.

The food pantry

The food pantry in the junior-senior high school building is in the old concession stand, said Mahoney. Garber partners with HACAP, a community action agency, to provide canned goods, pasta and other food items.

Residents have provided limited produce in the three years since it opened, Garber said.

“He’s had other producers give eggs before,” said Mahoney.

The food pantry is open to the public on Thursday nights. More than 60 people frequent the pantry, said Garber.

Portwood and Wille’s choice of plants was partly determined by what people ask for at the food pantry, said Portwood. That’s why they have so many tomato plants. People make a lot of salsa, she said.

Mentoring

Val Carr is the Master Gardener mentor to Portwood and Wille.

Carr said her role in the project has been minimal. The school district provides the space for the garden, and Portwood and Wille decided what to plant, what would grow, what would be needed in the food pantry, and where in the garden plot to put it.

“They did all the preliminary planning. They worked with Amy to order all the preliminary supplies,” said Carr. “[They] have done a phenomenal job.

“This is the first year that any of us has ever done this,” Carr said. The grant has very specific guidelines, she said. “You must have a hand wash station there, and all the foods must be given to the food pantry.”

The students will wash the produce, weigh it and chart it, Carr said. “My side is to be advisory to the kids as needed, but they’re doing a great job.

“It’s been a great project. I cannot say enough about the kids,” Carr said. “They’re already planning what they want to do for next year,” she said.

“It’s a big commitment.”

The future

The school has a little grant money leftover, Harrison said. FFA is going to use it to buy materials to make raised beds for next year’s garden, she said.

“I just think that it’s been perfect for this community,” Harrison said.