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Rappahannock News Staff Photo/Bill Kossler HANDS IN THE SOIL: Trista Scheuerlein and her sixth and seventh grade agriculture class putting potting soil into Earth Box individual portable gardens.
Learning
to grow
, By Bill Kossler
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Supported by the Young Farmland Fund, set up by Mitzi Young, Trista Scheuerlein is teaching a class at the elementary school this year in the science of agriculture. It is an exploratory class for sixth and seventh graders running as part of the school’s Farm-to -Table program.
Monday, Scheuerlein was outside with her students setting up Earth Boxes. These are biggish plastic planters with a water reservoir at the bottom, a tube to feed water to the reservoir without drenching the soil, and a plastic sort of shower cap on top, with holes poked in it for seedlings to sprout. These boxes are designed to keep moisture in but allow aeration of the soil and prevent root rot. The plastic cap both keeps out weeds and keeps in moisture.
Having a screened off reservoir for the water at the bottom allows plenty of water without drenching the soil. These simple devices are in use in classrooms and in small scale gardening across the U.S., in Latin America and Africa..
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