Hurley students learn nutrition through gardening

HURLEY — 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.

Lane’s project looks at ways to fix gaps in a community’s food system, with a special emphasis on nutritional deficiencies that may exist.

“I really want to look at communities and see where in the food system people are struggling, with a focus on nutrition,” said Lane, noting that a significant problem in Iron County was the relative lack of a local food system.

With this in mind, Lane has begun working with the children to make them aware of their role in the system.

“Hopefully as they grow as leaders in the community they can help to develop (a more comprehensive food system),” said Lane.

Once the crops that are being grown in the garden are harvested, Lane will begin to offer basic cooking lessons where they will learn recipes that utilize the plants they grew. Later the students will demonstrate the cooking lessons at the farmer’s market as part of the garden to market program.

“From here, we’re producing (food), and then we transport it to the farmers market, we sell it. But then also, (we look) how we’re preparing it, how we’re consuming it and sharing that knowledge,” Lane said, detailing what she hopes the students take away from the experience.