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Greener summer

Veggie kits given to students and their families

Abbey Palmer, an educator with the MSU Upper Peninsula Research and Extension Center, looks through a veggie kit on Friday at Gwinn Middle/High School. Free veggie kits were distributed that day at the school to allow students to garden at home this summer. (Journal photo by Christie Mastric)

GWINN — Bags full of green goodies were waiting to be picked up Friday afternoon at Gwinn Middle/High School.

If nurtured well, the plants should produce red and yellow goodies such as tomatoes and marigolds.

Abbey Palmer, an Michigan State University Extension educator based at Chatham’s MSU Upper Peninsula Research and Extension Center, has been working with several organizations to help students take the school gardening lifestyle home with them.

Palmer said the endeavor is a partnership between MSU Extension, the UPREC, the Marquette-Alger Regional Educational Service Agency, Partridge Creek Farm and MQT Growth — all organizations that support student gardens.

“We saw that there was going to be an issue this summer with teachers and students having access to their gardens potentially, what with the coronavirus and schools being closed,” Palmer said. “So, we wanted to find a way for student to take the school garden home with them.”

Transplants always are raised at MSU’s North Farm in Chatham, and are distributed through the Start Seeds/Save Seeds program, Palmer said.

The S4 program started in MARESA schools in 2015 to provide support to school gardens through seeds, transplants and activities linked to Next Generation Science Standards.

Palmer said the groups decided to adapt that program this year with veggie kits that contain items such as basil, tomatoes and marigolds as well as seeds.

She listed several benefits of gardening:

≤ hands-on learning outdoors.

≤ access to fresh food.

≤ insight into the big questions: Where does food come from? How does it grow?

≤ the relation of gardening to academic subjects such as science and biology, social studies, nutrition and health, history, mathematics and art.

≤ empowering students to become an informed segment of the next generation of eaters and farmers.

The kits are set up so the plants support each other — botanically, not psychologically.

“These plants are actually companions, if you will,” Palmer said. “The marigold emits a fragrance that some pests and animals don’t like.”

One herb particularly is unique.

“The basil, interestingly, emits vibrations — vibes — that other plants like,” Palmer said.

Calendula enhances pollination of the plants growing near it by enticing insects that pollinate other garden crops.

Each veggie kit has another bonus.

“What’s really cool is that it comes with recipes for how to use the things, and garden information,” Palmer said.

That could come in handy, since she noted gardeners could ask themselves: What is companion planting? How do I plant these things? Where do I plant them?”

Palmer there will be a social media campaign with the hash tag #startseedssaveseeds where people’s progress, information on cooking and gardening, and videos will be posted during the growing season.

An email about the veggie kits went out to teachers who have school gardens, and those teachers passed it on to students, she said.

The requests for the free kits, which have a $20 value, went quickly.

“We only had 75 kits, and they went within two days,” Palmer said.

Kathy McCowan picked up a veggie kit on Friday at Gwinn Middle/High School for her stepson, Wilder, who just finished sixth grade at the school.

McCowan has what she calls “a family garden” at home, and the new kits will introduce them to a new type of planting.

“It’s nothing fancy,” she said of her garden. “I was like, ‘Well, let’s get these.'”

Saving seeds from at least one type of plant in each kit is easy, Palmer said, and these seeds can be kept for the 2021 garden, donated to a school garden program or given to the Queen City Seed Library, located in the Peter White Public Library.

The program will continue to provide support for school gardens when school resumes.

Christie Mastric can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net

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