MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake High School students Anita Berecyk and Isabella Lodienoi carefully tend the okra they’ve been growing in pots in one of the MLHS greenhouses.

They are getting ready to finish this horticulture project, and both students have definite opinions about how it’s gone so far this winter.

“It was good at first and then it started dying because we have a bunch of bugs in our garden. Because it’s a greenhouse,” Berecyk said.

In addition to the okra, Berecyk and Lodienoi have grown tomatoes and broccoli, and they’ve already harvested a bunch of each. However, as she examined a large pod hanging from one of her plants, Lodienoi said she’d never even tasted okra before until she’d grown it as part of this class project.

“I thought they would be like cucumbers. But they taste like green beans,” she said. “But I think it’s pretty fun. I also have a garden myself at home, and I didn’t expect that this was a gardening class. I’m excited that we get to garden.”

Gardening is what these MLHS have been doing this year, according to Tony Kern, who is using up all the high school’s greenhouse space to teach five sections of horticulture this year as part of the school’s Future Farmers of America program. Kern said the seeds were donated by Walmart, leftover unsold from the previous spring and summer, and his students did a little research on what they wanted to grow before they planted anything.

“First semester, these kids raised an indoor garden. We start in September and we have a whole bunch of seeds to choose from,” he said. “We had eight to 12 different varieties of vegetables, and they chose them based on this kind of short season. Even though it’s indoors, the big thing was how long it would take for them to mature.”

Kern said students tracked the progress of their plants — when they sprouted, when they harvested and how much they picked.

“It’s nice,” said junior Selena Escamilla. “You get to see your own creation grow and then slowly die.”

For many of these students, one of the biggest blessings from the class is having something to eat from all their work.

“I do like my veggies,” said junior Owen Freeman as he held up a plastic bag of broccoli florets he’d grown and just picked. “Actually, I’m really excited for this dill I’m going to try. We tried to grow some cucumbers or squash or whatever, but it didn’t work out so well.”

Kern, who has taught ag science and horticulture at MLHS for 23 years, said as the students are slowly finishing their projects, the plants will be pulled up and everything cleaned and sterilized in preparation for the growing greenhouse flowers for the FFA’s spring flower sale.

“I honestly think I have the best teaching job in the entire district. It’s amazing. I get the opportunity to come out here in the greenhouses, kids that are engaged and enjoying what they are doing, and they are choosing to be here,” he said.

Teaching students to grow greenhouse vegetables is one way to introduce them to the world of agriculture, and the reality of where their food comes from — carefully worked soil tended with a great deal of patience and persistence.

“We live in an agricultural Mecca,” Kern said. “So much amazing agriculture goes on in the Basin and a lot of kids don’t even realize it. I love the opportunity to share with them what we have going on in the Basin, and getting them that greater appreciation of where their food comes from.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.