'Nothing better than homegrown food'

DELAND -- Adam Evans, whose family has planted vegetable gardens as long as he can remember, already knows one of the lessons DeLand High agriculture teacher Brett Brandner is trying to teach hundreds of other students.

"There's nothing better than homegrown food," said Adam, 16, a DeLand High sophomore and FFA member..

Brandner is hoping to spread that word to other students -- and the community in general -- through the latest addition to the DeLand High agriculture program, a 2-acre vegetable garden where locals will be able to pick what they want for a fee beginning Tuesday.

Proceeds will be invested back into the high school agriculture program, which enrolls 280 students who learn about everything from raising livestock to horticulture.

"I hope people will realize the importance of agriculture in the community and homegrown produce," Brandner said.

And he's hoping his students, many of whom keep animals at the school's farm bordering Spring Garden Avenue, will realize vegetable gardening is something they can do at home to benefit their families.

"In today's economy, this is something kids can take home and feed their families," Brandner said.

Few of the students enrolled in DeLand High's agriculture program have families that are directly involved in farming operations, Brandner said.

Some, like Morgan Russ, are learning lessons in ag classes they hope to use in later careers. Morgan, a 16-year-old junior who started taking agriculture classes at DeLand Middle School, is raising two cows, three calves and a steer. She hopes to become a large animal veterinarian.

Sarah McDaniel, a 15-year-old freshman, enrolled in the agriculture program because "I want to know all the horticulture stuff." She's raising a steer named Chops to show at the county fair next fall and dreams of some day owning a farm in Tennessee.

Brandner said the school farm used to boast an orange grove that brought in about $15,000 a year for the agriculture program through fruit sales, but many of the trees died off over the years.

Students planted and tended the new vegetable farm, where part of the orange grove used to stand, after school hours.

Yellow squash, zucchini and green beans will be ready for picking starting Tuesday, Brandner said, with corn, okra, three kinds of peas and watermelon to ripen later.

The farm, at 300 Cranor Road, will be open to the public for picking from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays until the vegetable crop is exhausted. Squash will sell for $1 a pound and green beans for 75 cents a pound.

Brandner said the spring garden is a trial run that he hopes to expand into a year 'round operation that could add other crops such as tomatoes, blueberries and potatoes if it's successful and grants can be obtained for modernizing the farm's planting and irrigation methods.