S o, how does your garden grow? For students at Florala High School’s agri-science program, it’s an easy question to answer – with careful tending, fertilizer and Wildcat spirit.

This is the second year students in Daniel Green’s and Pat Maddox’s classes have planted and harvested from their winter garden. This year’s selections are a variety of greens, including spinach, turnips, mustards and lettuce.

“We’ve got two sites,” Green said. “One next to the agri-science building and another field below it. The great thing about this project is that it gets students involved in home growing – a practice I think we’ve gotten away from over the years.”

Green said students are responsible for their own crop row.

“That means they have to water it, weed it, fertilize it,” he said. “It’s a direct reflection on how they’re managing their crop. It teaches great responsibility, too.”

And the students not only enjoy the work, they also enjoy the fruits – or vegetables, in this case – of their labor.

“Last year, which was our first year, the lunchroom staff cooked up things out of the garden, which the kids got a big kick out of,” Green said. “And that was the first question students asked me this year, ‘Will we get to eat it?’

“I think the whole process shows students what you can accomplish with a little bit of hard work,” he said. “It’s something they can be proud of – sitting down to a meal they had a hand in preparing. It not only tastes good, it says, ‘Look at my hard work and look what I done.’”