By James Brown
Glasgow News 1
As Barren County Schools celebrated Ag Education Week across the district, the work students had done in gardens at each school was also spotlighted.
Produce that had been grown in the gardens was served Tuesday as part of the farm to cafe event.
“Every student in the district had a lunch meal where every item was locally sourced,” said Dr. Andy Joe Moore, the Farm to School district coordinator. “One thing that was neat, that we haven’t been able to do in the past, is there were some food items that students had grown during the main growing season that had been processed and frozen, and then we were able to use that for the meal.”
Moore said at each location there was information posted about where the food was grown, and the names of students involved in growing the food was included.
Moore was at Red Cross Elementary on Wednesday morning while the Ag Education Week program at that school was underway. He and principal Josh Maples talked about the program where Barren County school district students help plant, care for and harvest produce.
Maples said this is the third year his school has grown a garden. He said it started small, but has grown with the help of a garden club.
“We had 44 more students who signed up yesterday,” Maples said. “We have 80 to 85 students.”
“I thought there might be 10 or 12 that might want to do this,” the principal added with a laugh.
Maples, who grew up pumpkin farming in Tennessee, said he stepped off a hundred feet and planted flags to mark the area for the garden to get it started.
“I tried to find the most flat spot I could, and obviously full sun and all that,” he said. “They tilled it up and we had rocks like you wouldn’t believe, but now we are to the point where we are able to function and not have to till as much, and we don’t get as many rocks.”
“We’ve learned a lot about our spot, our soil quality … and even what crops grow best in the soil that we have” the principal said.
“Yesterday they harvested a ton of gourds. It’s amazing what’s come out that garden,” Maples said. He added that squash and zucchini that has come from the garden has been served in the cafeteria.
Moore said Red Cross students had harvested over 525 pounds of produce year-to-date that had been served in cafeterias.
Maples added that one of the things that makes him smile every day is the flowers that the students maintain in front of Red Cross.
“It’s really created a great culture of what hard work means,” he said.
