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\u201cKids feel like you\u2019re supposed to grow a garden and watch it like a museum,\u201d White said. \u201cBut Bob really encourages them to eat and enjoy what they\u2019ve grown. That trips them out that abundance can happen like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are funny moments \u2013 the kids are afraid of the ghost pepper plants, and they dare one another to tend to them and treat them like poison. There are hard moments \u2013 like most adults, no kid enjoys pulling weeds, but the life lessons they\u2019re learning will carry them past the summer camps and plant beds.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHeirloom tomatoes trip them out,\u201d White said. \u201cThey\u2019re all funky and massive with different color rings, but when you cut into them they\u2019re so red and taste better than anything you can get in the store.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A perfect example of why you can\u2019t judge a book by its cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The kids aren\u2019t only learning and working, they\u2019re reaping the benefits of their hard work. The city of Tullahoma gave their first bountiful harvest back to the families involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think they\u2019re so scared to eat as if it\u2019s not theirs, but they\u2019re with us every week. This is their food to eat,\u201d White said. \u201cLearning that was huge for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before the garden was revived, among the overgrown weeds and residual herbs there were concrete stepping stones left by previous gardeners. The cub scouts personalized a few of them with paint, and it gave Spellman an idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He started going to local businesses and asking their employees if they wanted to paint a stone. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t cost anything,\u201d White said, \u201cand they don\u2019t ask for donations they just want to see all of the parts of Tullahoma reflected in the garden.\u201d Now, at least 15 local small businesses have painted their own stones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe want the community to slowly be represented in this garden,\u201d he said. This fall, with the help of a brand new after-school program, they\u2019re growing pumpkins, zucchini, multiple types of squash, and more. White\u2019s current project is an arbor with pole beans growing throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPretty soon, kids will be able to walk underneath that and pull beans from it while walking underneath it,\u201d he said.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n White said that eventually they\u2019d like to move more garden beds into local parks and other areas so that they can be accessible for even more Tullahoma families.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe vision is to have a community garden that represents the diversity of the people here in the city of Tullahoma,\u201d he said. \u201cWe envision a variety of vegetables, herbs, and flowers being grown here that tell a story of humanity that brings people together in relation to food and sustainability.\u201d GN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aaron White began the Let\u2019s Plant Program in 2022 to encourage families and kids to do what they could to grow their own food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":6838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-6836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","tag-november"],"yoast_head":"\n