Students in the Agriculture Education program at Polk County High School recently created pallet gardens to learn about vertical farming.
Students repurposed discarded wooden pallets by removing a few boards and creating pockets of soil to grow leaf lettuce and Swiss chard. Each student participated in this hands-on project.
“In many areas of the world where land is scarce, farmers have turned to growing crops vertically to get more production per acre,” said Agriculture teacher Chauncey Barber. “Our pallet gardens are very small scale, but we wanted our students to recognize there are different methods to produce our food.”
The students used wooden pallets, landscape fabric, potting soil along with leaf lettuce seed and Swiss chard transplants to create their vertical gardens. The plan is to grow the plants outside until freezing weather and then move the pallet gardens inside the school greenhouse.
Barber is hopeful the lettuce and chard will be harvested through late November.
