Winter greens

The snow is just receding from lawns and gardens throughout Columbia Falls, but lush, verdant heads of kale, chard, lettuce and even basil are already being tended by students at Glacier Gateway Elementary.

Starting in January, Rachel Hess’s third grade class assembled a 4-foot tall aeroponic tower garden that has the capacity to yield over 30 plants in less than a square meter.

The tower structure consists of a 20-gallon water tank at the base of a cylindrical column dotted with multiple pockets containing Rockwool, a spongy, finely meshed scaffolding for the plants’ roots to anchor to. Four long LED lights protrude from the top and dangle like drooping antennae in front of the column, shining light back at the plants. Every 15 minutes or so a timed pump pushes water to the top of the column where it then cascades down over all the pockets of root wads.

Students propagated several different species of greens in Rockwool plugs grown on a windowsill. Once the seeds germinated after three or four weeks, they were placed in the tower. They have been growing in the tower for nearly four weeks since, and are nearly ready to harvest, Hess said.

The project was initially proposed to the school by Niki Dezzani, a Gateway student’s mom and member of Healthy Living Cooperative, a local organization focused on health and wellness in the Flathead Valley. Dezzani secured a grant through the Flathead Conservation District to purchase the tower and growing kit from the manufacturer, Juice Plus.

After securing funding, Dezzani didn’t have anyone lined up to implement the project, so she approached her son’s third grade teacher Hess “out of the blue,” she said, and Hess readily agreed.

The project provides multiple learning opportunities. Students get an introduction to food systems and a familiarization with a broader array of produce, said Dezzani. But technical math and chemistry are also involved when kids monitor the water reservoir, the major maintenance of the operation. And the company, Juice Plus, provides lessons that teachers can choose to incorporate.

Once a week students measure the water temperature in the tank, ensuring it doesn’t get too warm. They also test a vial of the water to ensure its pH is within an optimal range. Small amounts of two liquid nutrient solutions, one basic, one acidic, are then incrementally added to achieve the perfect level. Once a month, they empty the tank and start over.

“This is the trickiest part,” said Hess. A slight addition of one of the nutrients can easily swing the pH past its mark. Unperturbed, Hess calmly guides students through each of the steps, seamlessly rotating kids through the tasks and involving everyone. “It’s still pretty new for us right now, but once we get familiar with the basics, we might start expanding with the lessons they provide,” said Hess.

Harvesting is the final reward, when kids get to sample the greens. Anything left, said Hess, will be used as salad for a staff meeting.

It’s this hands-on interaction with the plants that is the most promising for Dezzani.

“When kids are growing it themselves, they form an attachment to it, making them more likely to eat what they normally wouldn’t,” Dezzani said. “A lot of kids don’t know what basil or arugula is. It’s exciting to introduce them to it.”

Every school in the district now has a tower garden. Ruder has already harvested a crop of peppers from theirs. The high school has three towers, located next to the large windows in the cafeteria, and has logged five or six harvests since the beginning of the school year, one of which supplied the greens for the salad at a parent teacher conference dinner. Juice Plus is also donating a tower to the Boys and Girls Club. All of the schools obtained them through grants.

Aeroponics is a form of growing plants without soil, leaving roots naked and exposed to the air, but frequently rinsing them with nutrient-rich water. Hydroponics, which also grows plants without soil, differs slightly from this technique in that it keeps roots constantly submerged.

The most notable benefit of aeroponics is to have year-round access to fresh greens and produce with minimal resources and maintenance, and “without having to ship them from Mexico,” said Erin Quintia, teacher of the Sustainable Systems class that maintains the high school’s gardens.

The benefits are convincing more than just schools, notes Dezzani, who said that tower gardens are popping up all over the Flathead, from organizations like The Wave in Whitefish and preschools, to families.