Opportunities grow with new hydroponic garden at GMUHS

By Greg Hart

© The Chester Telegraph 2014

The Opportunities in Learning program at Green Mountain Union High School has created an indoor hydroponic garden thanks to two local grants for $2,500 each. One comes from the Chester Academy and the other from Southern Vermont Hydroponics in Mount Holly.

Opportunities team and garden managers are clockwise, from top left, school-to-work transition coordinator John Donarum; Jennifer Parks, director of Opportunities in Learning; Jack Carroll, director of Food Services, students Matt Mosher and Andrew Plumb; and para-educator Mark Burbela. Not pictured are para-educator Mary Bigwood and Southern Vermont Hydroponics owner Casey Hodge. Photos by Greg Hart. Click photo to launch gallery.

Casey Hodge, owner of Southern Vermont Hydroponics, also donated an estimated $700 in materials as well as his time and expertise in getting the garden set up. The garden was started in early April and was producing lettuce to be used in the school’s cafeteria by the end of school.

A bright idea takes root

John Donarum is the school-to-work transition coordinator, helps Opportunities students and others at GM to get ready for life after school. He’s also a Mount Holly resident who one day — out of curiosity — stopped in to Southern Vermont Hydroponics. Conversations with store owner Casey Hodge and with Opportunities in Learning director Jennifer Parks led to the idea of starting a hydroponic garden at Green Mountain.

“We have all this space,” says Parks gesturing to the nearly 800 square foot space adjoining Opportunities’ main classroom, which was once a metal shop. Donarum and the Opportunities students already had experience growing, Last year they set up   an outdoor garden plot that has provided root vegetables like onions, potatoes, carrots and radishes.

Space, experience and opportunity aren’t the only reasons for undertaking this project: The garden also fits nicely with the goals of the Opportunities program.

Comprised of students with various learning challenges, the program offers an alternative to the typical classroom environment.

While academics are certainly a focus, the Opportunities program uses a more hands-on approach.

Greens, some ready for harvest, in the hydroponic solution and under grow lights.

“We’re trying to make school a positive and engaging place for these students,” says Parks. Through projects like the garden, students apply academic skills like math, science and language as well as learning much needed organizational skills and responsibility. Central to the Opportunities program is helping students with transitioning into job readiness while integrating community service whenever possible. The garden project seems to qualify on all counts.

Led by junior Andrew Plumb and sophomore Matt Mosher, the Opportunities in Learning students have embraced the garden project. With the aid of Donarum and Hodge, both Andrew and Matt were involved with writing the grant application to the Chester Academy.

Andrew, who has been in the horticultural program at River Valley Technical Center for the past two years, was a natural to step up to take a leadership role as student manager of the garden. As such, he must schedule various garden tasks for his classmates and test and change the hydroponic solution, which is the lifeblood of the garden. Andrew and Matt are also on the front line of caring for the garden over the summer even though school is out.

Seedlings and flowering plants under grow lights.

With his seemingly green thumb, Andrew was asked if horticulture might be in his future. “Not really,” he said. “I’m pretty into cars and maybe becoming a mechanic now.” That being said, the benefits of opportunities like working on the garden are not lost on Andrew.

This was Andrew’s first year in the Opportunities program and he noted his academic improvement over that time saying, “Last year I was failing quite a few classes, and this year I’m not failing any.”

While the gardens were originated by Opportunities students, any GM student is welcome to participate and parents and community members are welcome to visit the gardens.

Seedlings in pots of stone pellets.

Why hydroponic?

Instead of plants growing in a typical soil medium, hydroponic gardens provide nutrients to the plants with a liquid solution that is pumped from a reservoir throughout a system of tubes to the roots of each plant. The plants are started from seed in a pot containing absorbent clay pellets.

The pots rest with their bases in the nutrient-rich solution, and the clay pellets provide a bit of structure and support to the growing plant, while allowing its roots to hang below in the solution.

The advantages of growing hydroponically and indoors include precise control over nutrients as well as the environment, no weeding or pests and typically a faster growing cycle. Like most hydroponic gardens, the Opportunities garden is indoors, which means that instead of natural light, electric lights on timers provide the necessary full spectrum of light.

Plants are rotated throughout the system as they mature from seedlings to mature plants ready to harvest.

The nutrient solution remains the same until the last 10 days of the cycle when, as the plants are nearly ready to harvest, the solution is changed. For this final stage of growth, the nutrients are removed and some sugar is added to the solution allowing the plants’ natural flavors to come forth, enhanced a bit by the sweetness.

Andrew Plumb proudly displays a healthy root system of a lettuce plant.

All the plants at GM were started from organic seeds and include various types of lettuce, kale, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and sweet peppers. New seeds are started about every 10 days, with a typical growing cycle of about 45 days depending on the plants. Jack Carroll, director of food services for the Chester schools, said that the first harvest of lettuce would likely provide enough greens for a full week at the GM cafeteria salad bar.

Carroll has been transforming the menu at Green Mountain to include more fresh local foods and eliminating as much processed food as possible. Providing students with greens and vegetables grown on site fits in perfectly with this new philosophy. “Someday I’d love to see a greenhouse here, providing even more fresh produce,” says Carroll.

In the meantime a steady supply of in-house produce means reducing food costs while providing healthy local vegetables.

That is the short term goal. Long term goals include more efficient production out of the current space and eventually expanding the garden.

A closer look at growing greens.

When production outpaces cafeteria demand the plan is to take any excess to the food shelf at the Chester Andover Family Center as well as selling at local farmers markets.

While the grant money was used to cover the startup costs of the garden including equipment, materials and construction, now the garden is ready to produce with minimal funding needed to continue. Between saving money for the school’s food services and earning money at market, the hope is that the garden will be self-sustaining, producing enough to cover the costs of nutrients, seeds and other supplies.