Ep 143 | Inspiring kids to eat their veggies

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The why is really what drives me, whether it's adults or kids. I think that if kids grow their own vegetables, they're more likely to eat it. I've actually had kids sample kale directly in the garden.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every student in Escambia County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support every student's success. If you're like me, you remember George H.W. Bush famously announcing his dislike for broccoli during the early 90s. But if you're a parent, you know it's not just presidents who refuse to eat their vegetables. So how do we move our kids from brightly colored sugar cereals to multicolored veggies without a meltdown? My next guest may have the answer. He's the Farm Garden Playground Consultant at Picked at Perfection, working with local schools to provide not just on-site pocket gardens, but immersive experiences to help kids reconnect. And today he's going to share how this unique partnership is inspiring kids to eat their veggies and get their hands in the dirt. Navy veteran, Midwest Transplant, passionate about plants, people, and Pensacola, Greg Miller. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Thank you. What an amazing introduction. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

I'm glad that you like it.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Spot on. Exactly what I love to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Well, out of the general population, I think there's kind of a smallish percentage of people interested in growing their own food. But there's an even smaller percentage of that population interested in getting kids interested in growing their own food. So why is that important to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Well, I always start out with the mission for the farm and kind of the why. And the mission for the farm is to reconnect people to their food by helping them plant, grow, harvest, and prepare amazing plant-centered meals. And the why is really the part that keeps me going. It's basically I hate to see people suffer. I love to see people thrive. And there is a path. And that path, in my view, is a lifestyle around plants and eating whole foods. It translates down to kids in the sense that when I started working with the schools, I would see overweight or obesity in the kids in elementary school. And so what I say is you want to set them up for success. And what I was seeing in the schools when I first started, and we're slowly changing this, but a lot of the schools I work with are project schools that were F and now C schools. So they were rewarding the kids for good grades with candy. And so that's not setting them up for success. So when I saw that, we were starting to change that. But basically, the other thing I see over and over again is that a garden would get started and then it doesn't sustain. So I get called in a lot where there's dilapidated raised beds or gardens that have just not been maintained. Later in the podcast, I suppose we'll talk about sustainability and funding, but the why is really what drives me, whether it's adults or kids. I think that if kids grow their own vegetables, they're more likely to eat it. I've actually had kids sample kale directly in the garden.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Really?

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah. Now they'll eat a carrot. Like the first time a kid pulls a carrot, they literally light up. And that's the most joyful thing I think that I see. So yeah, I love teaching kids how to grow stuff. And then down the road, we have plans for, I think you've got it on your list there, but my first garden where they're gonna get to take home a grow bag and grow something. We have on the plans a farm stand at the school where the things that they're growing will literally go out to the farm stand and on their way home, they'll get a little recyclable bag full of grow uh veggies that they can take home and eat. The one thing that we're learning, or I suppose I'm learning, when I learn something at one school, I tr try to transpose that and share it with all the principals. So collards, surprisingly. A lot of the kids are African American, and so they're familiar with cooking collards. Now it might be with bacon and something else, but I find that they relate to collard. So that's one thing that will definitely grow.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

And there's nothing like fresh collard and mushroom greens. Nothing like it.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

I have come to like them now. I've had my own journey with veggies.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

So tell me about that, because that's what I think I'm curious about, and maybe our listeners would be too, because everyone likes the idea of a garden, but like actually doing it or actually eating food from the garden, that is a very different thing. And as I said, getting your kids interested to do the same, that is a that is like advanced level. So, what was your initial reason for becoming interested in all of this? Because your background is military, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

So military and IT.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

How did you get here?

SPEAKER_00 5:22

That's a pretty amazing. I've always been health-minded, but I was, I guess about I'll just say it. I was a hot wings and beer guy like 10 years ago. And what happens, I'll go deep into microbiome, gut microbiome, and what happens. But basically, I was so broken out on my arms from my gut being messed up. And I started researching it, and then I was started learning about fiber and just how 70% of your immune system's in your gut. So when you get breakouts, it's coming from somewhere. So once I started to get that solved, then all of a sudden the breakouts went away. I was like, hmm, all right, I might be onto something here. The other story that I share when I do farm tours is I have a cousin up in Ohio that's my age, and always overweight, obese, and the obesity caused type 2 diabetes. And then the type 2 diabetes caused him to lose both kidneys.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

And so then he was on dialysis, and then he started losing body parts. So they started amputating toes. And anytime like he's had to have surgery or that sort of thing, it's very difficult in the healing process. So when I say I hate to see people suffer, I love to see people thrive, and there is a path, it's in my own family. And we all have people in our families who have chronic disease. And so I'm hopeful for the Make America Healthy Again movement because I think as people begin to learn how to grow things, get back to Victory Gardens, growing their own food, learning how to prepare it so it tastes great. There's an underlying story and stories that drive me, that create the purpose.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

And Pensacola has its own unique history with personal gardens. That's Garden Street. We used to be the garden district.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

I know that. Yes, yeah. That's new to me. I'll have to research that.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah, I learned that from Chad Henderson. He's working to kind of revitalize that area as a hyper-walkable area. And that little bit of history is compliments of him. So I can't take credit for that.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

But I'll have to research that.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

So it's in our city DNA, you might say. So how did the partnership with the schools come about specifically?

SPEAKER_00 7:33

That's actually interesting. I I was on the East Hill Neighborhood Association board and I got connected with OJ Sims because we helped rehab their teacher lounge. And then as I got to know the principal and we started talking about gardens. And then as I was starting my farm, the school garden there naturally came right out of that because I already had a relationship there at the school. And one of the board members actually sponsored the first garden there. So we put a little four-way, what I call pocket garden in. And a pocket garden is a term I came up with. I coined it's just literally a 10 foot by 30 inch bed that, and this is the process the big organic farmers use. I just shrunk it down to make it fit in a school. And it's modular. I have one school I have has 24 of those. My farm has a hundred.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Oh my gosh. So your farm in the middle of like East Hill, they road.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

So 110-foot beds.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Can you describe it to me? Because when you said it's not like those dilapidated beds with the wood, okay, I know what that looks like. Yes. And I was following you, I thought, until you said they're a modular, and now I'm lost again. So can you describe what the pocket gardens look like?

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah. There's no ray, it's not raised beds. It's simply in the ground and you build the soil up. So it literally starts out with cardboard. And my neighbors probably thought I was absolutely crazy because here I was laying cardboard directly over top the grass. And after you put the cardboard down, which is just a temporary weed barrier, it will turn into soil eventually, which is what you want. You don't want to use landscape fabric. So, and then you build a I use ropes and stakes, and you just build out a 30-inch bed and then an 18-inch wood chip path. So when you see it, you'll see like I think there's 18, 50 foot rows in my front with the wood chip path and 30-inch bed. And I've gone to one crop per 50 foot. So I've got 50 foot of carrots right now, which you just saw a couple of.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yes, and they're beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

So 50 foot of Los Nato kale, 50 foot of broccoli, different types of vegetables. So when you walk past it, I like the term, I call it stunning and compelling. So I want my farm to look stunning and compelling just when people go by. There's so many flowers, and sunflowers are the real draw people in. It's like, hmm, what's going on there? And there's big arch trellises, they're built out of cattle panels. There's flat panels, trellises. So it's all has a symmetry about it. So the schools are built the same way. Basically, it's stunning and compelling is what I'm going for, so that it draws people in with flowers. One of the things we did at OJ Sims, which was a goal, was we wanted to grow enough zinnias or flowers so that every classroom could have fresh flowers once a week in a mason jar. So we're not quite there, but we are doing flowers in the courtyard where the kids eat. So there's a mason jar full of fresh flowers out there. And I have heard the teachers say it brings a little joy, you know, it brings a little happiness when they're eating with the kids just to have fresh flowers that they grew.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Well, it shows that it's an important space.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

It is. It is. So, anyhow, it's a lot of fun, you know, for me personally. The thing that I'm trying to do, the big thing, it's a 10-year project for me. It's something I'm committing the next 10 years to. And I want it to be sustainable because I see over and over again where a volunteer will come, get it started, and then it won't keep going. So a year, two years, and then it goes back dilapidated.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah. Yeah. And you have six schools total that you've worked with so far.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Does that mean that you are the person going to maintain all of these right now?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

The good news is I have a UWF student who wants to be a farm manager. So he's actually helping me now also. But I've actually had volunteers come. Everybody wants to come to the beach. So this church group came down and as a service project, they helped build or expand the OJ Sims garden. So we added arts trellis and a couple flat panel trellises and four more beds. So they've got an eight-way, what I call eight-way, which is eight beds. So in some cases, I'll have volunteers and the kids had a blast doing it. They were teenagers and some of them from farms. So they knew what they were doing. That's how sometimes it gets built. But my long-term plan is to have a team and probably UWF health students, health students, or environmental science students, or even education students. And the Boys and Girls Club, which is at the school, maintained and supported it. So they go out and water it and that sort of thing. But when we were doing the plant installs there, I described that there are 30 kids or 40 kids, and I said it was chaos, but it was controlled chaos. So I was trying to, we had a couple volunteers and we were trying to guide the kids' little hands to plant the plant into the pocket garden, essentially. And they had a blast. It was super fun. In one case, you know, we just do little trenches and the kids get to drop the seeds and they get to see the different sizes of seeds. Like a little tomato seed is incredibly small, and yet it creates this. In the case of indeterminate cherry tomatoes, it's like 11 foot tall when it's full grown. So and cre creates hundreds of tomatoes. So a kid see that little tiny seed turn into a plant that's 11 feet tall. And we did that at Global Learning in the greenhouse. We had Sun Gold tomatoes in this case. So Montclair, yeah, they got to plant. And then I think the one I'm most excited about is Global Learning Academy, which is right next door here. We're going to tour in just a little bit. So what happens is why I'll work with one school, they'll get excited, and then they'll refer me to another school. What happened that I did worked with Helen Carroll, and the vice principal, she was vice principal at OJ Sims, became the principal at Helen Carroll. And of course, she, you know, said, Hey, we want one of those gardens over here at Helen Carroll. So a lot of times it'll be referrals. You know, principal will work one place and then move to another school and they'll they'll want one there. But anyhow, global learning, when I first got referred there, it was in the summer just last year. And they have this big, giant, amazing greenhouse that had not been used for like 10 years. So I walked into it and I was like, oh my God, it has overhead irrigation. It has yes, everything. It's amazing. But when I walked in, it was very dilapidated. It was sad, but I saw the potential. I was like, and in the global learning mission and charter, they said the kids would go out there weekly and they weren't. And so in the fall, we got it working. I had to be electrician, plumber, you know, all those things to get the greenhouse functional again. But it's just been an amazing experience. The kids have been out there. And we also did pocket gardens outside. So some of the seeds get started inside the science classroom, some get started outside. So they see the full gamut. And I think the most incredible thing was just 10 feet of carrots. We planted 10 feet of carrots, and you would not believe how many carrots came out of just, and we pulled them all out. And it in this case it went to the teachers. The science teacher shared them with all the teachers, and it was like, but I have pictures of it. I think we pulled two rounds of just a massive amount of carrots out of 10 feet. So a lot of times I describe more like mini farms instead of gardens because a lot of times people in their head think like that weedy, kind of unorganized garden. And in this case, it's more like a mini farm that it produces enough that it will make a difference. We could go into the cafeteria or we could go into a farm stand where the kids take it home.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

So the kids do a farm stand. They sometimes are involved in the establishment of the garden. Do they get to water it or visit it during recess? Like what's the process as after the garden is established of their involvement?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

My plan and hope is that they do the full all four. So the mission is plant, grow, harvest, prepare. So I want them doing all four of them, hopefully. So it's kind of up to the school to each school is very unique in Escambia County. And that's what's been interesting, I suppose fascinating to me is I always thought there was some kind of equity between schools. And I learned that every school is very different.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, because the students are different, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Global learning I've described as Disneyland. If you go inside, it literally feels like Disneyland. And now they've got this amazing greenhouse and garden program that go along, and they have a unique science program. They have a science, dedicated science teacher. So all the kids rotate through. And the curriculum, they actually study seeds and plant growth. So there's a huge difference between reading about something and experiencing it. So when they can experience what they're reading about, then it reinforces the learning.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

What has been the kids' reactions? Like because you were describing as they're looking at the seed. And in my imagination, I'm picturing a little kid going, I'm holding tomatoes and looking at the tiny dots on his hand.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

I think one of the fascinating things at bowl schools is since we started this in the fall, Global Learning had these sunflowers that were growing, but it was right outside the, I think it was preschool or first grade. And this big giant sunflower was growing right outside the classroom. And the kids watched it grow, and then it did its life cycle, and then it started to droop. And the kids were so sad. But the fascinating part was that sunflower dropped seeds. And we had so many, we still have, you'll see them in a minute, so many volunteer sunflowers that popped up everywhere. So the kids got to see that. And the cool thing, which has been my goal a long since I have this greenhouse, is that greenhouse will supply plants for the other schools. It's that big. So the sunflowers from Global Learning, the volunteers went to OJ Sims and to CAY SEMENTY and got planted. So, and what happened at OJ Sims? We had all these sungold tomatoes literally everywhere, just hundreds of them. All these tomato plants. So we harvested the little volunteers, put them in pots, and some of those got sent over to CAY SELENTERTY. So they're seeing the volunteers go from one school to the other. So it's this kind of cool partnership where the principals get to share things and what they're learning. And it's something I'm passionate about. I didn't think I would be doing schools when I started the farm, but it's kind of become our specialty. And it's just simply something I enjoy, you know, seeing the kids pull a carrot.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

And you mentioned sponsorships earlier. So how does that work? Is this just a passion project? Are you getting paid? How are the schools maintaining the costs and the labor around each of these pocket gardens?

SPEAKER_00 19:07

That's a really good question. And the funding side of it has is critical for me because I want these to be sustainable. Hence, I want a team of people and being able to pay people, you know, volunteers kind of go so far. The way the funding's worked so far is I had a local business owner who was on the board sponsor the first one at OJ Sims. And then we I heard about this Whole Food Garden Grant, which is, if you're familiar with Whole Food Market, they have a foundation. And we applied, Helen Carroll and OJ Sims both got a $3,000 grant. So that helped. But the curriculum they provided was phenomenal. They provided seeds, just a whole curriculum. So that funded those two schools. And now I've got other schools applying for that grant. And then most recently, Scambia Children's Trust, through the Healthy Schools, the Scambia Initiative, has partnered to fund the schools also. Now we've got kind of a monthly recurring, and then I'm also working with Children's Home Society. So I should mention all these entities. I'm an IT business guy, so I've had to learn nonprofits and how to get funding and grants, but a little I'm learning. So, anyhow, the Children's Home Society is sponsoring the CAY SELEMENTER ON. Learning and OJ Sims Garden. So I'm getting better, you know, at finding the funding.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

What's the cost for a garden?

SPEAKER_00 20:35

The numbers that I've come, it's taken me a while to get to this number, but it's 7,500 to start, 1,500 goes to building it. And then the 6,000 that's left over goes to 500 a month to, which is basically a weekly site visit to ensure that everything's timed and planned and it looks good. So when the kids come out, so it's weeded, everything is taken care of. I started doing irrigation systems so that now they don't have to stand out there and water. Although that's probably cool for them, but the irrigation works better. So it gets watered at 5 a.m. for an hour. And so yeah, it's doing phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

So if a listener would want to sponsor a garden, or maybe they have a business and they want to sponsor a garden, is that something that can happen?

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Absolutely. We've got, I think, 18 or 28 elementary schools. So in my head, I think at some point I will be working at the school system level because I I describe it like I said, it's more like a mini farm, but I say it's more like it's professionally managed. So I use an app called Seed Time, which allows me to time everything, make sure it gets planted at the right time. It's actually quite being in the IT community, I thought that was hard. Growing things and knowing timing and w you know, pests and weed management, all that sort of thing. A lot of study, a lot of YouTube videos.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Well, it is interesting because it's like applied. Science, right? And so it's interesting to me to hear your process and then think about the process of the kids and what impact that could potentially have on their engagement with their textbooks and those more traditional forms of education. But how do you prevent rodents? Because you said you're not using garden fabric. And around here, you know, we have these little vol creatures that come up and go, oh, a carrot? I will take that. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Fortunately, I haven't. I've got a couple like moles in my, but they've never gone after my. I'll tell you the biggest pest that I have, the biggest problem I have. This is just a funny story. Just an aside. I have a boxer. Her name is Pearl.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Yes, a boxer would be the biggest pest.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

She has learned to go out and dig and dig her own carrots. And I'll see her walking back up to the back door with a carrot and the and the greens, just carrying it up and she'll eat it on the so I have the healthiest dog in the neighborhood.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

I bet you do.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

No doubt. But as far as uh pest management, that sort of thing, when you do organic and regenerative, you're like my front yard was literally a weedy, there was nothing there. So you work on the soil health, and as soon as I started getting the flowers going, it started bringing in bees and butterflies and hummingbirds, surprisingly. And all the predator pests, so they kind of manage the other pests to keep it under control. So I don't have all of it dialed in yet, but the organic principles do work. It's all organic, so I don't use any pesticide, any synthetic fertilizer. I use an organic fertilizer called garden tone to initially get it going. But then just keeping it watered and earthworms. When you see lots of earthworms, that's a good sign. And you I use something called a broad fork, which in the is a tool that they use to aerate, but it doesn't ever flip the soil. The lesson I learned is when you flip the soil, you actually bring up wheat seeds. And so you want to just aerate it, let the earthworms do the work, you know, put some daikon radishes in, which are these deep, big, deep radishes, and use them to break up the soil. So I I use very fert little fertilizer now because I uh the other thing I do is you leave the roots in the ground. So that helps with the fertilizer also. So all of that translates to science lessons, though. There's so many photosynthesis, you know.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

So many science lessons that kids learning it and then saying, Oh, and the other thing that you'll learn from the smoothie I gave you, the fresher the vegetable, the higher the nutrient content. Hence picked at perfection. One of the most fascinating things are I like beets. And I would go get organic beets from Evermans and it would say it came from California, or worse, Brazil.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

A long way away.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

I was like, oh my gosh, we can grow beets in Pensacola. We don't need to. So if they're shipping it that far, they're either doing something to it to make it look good and healthy, or you can tell if you get a beet from the store, the greens are kind of wilted down. The nutrient content's higher. And if you're growing it organically, the nutrient content's even higher. So all that just rolls up into make America healthy again.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

I wonder what your take is on this. Like, I think people are hearing this and they're going, oh my gosh, this sounds amazing. This sounds idyllic. How beautiful. I love these hands-on science lessons. But you know, when you say yes to one thing, you say no to another thing. So for schools and even on the personal side, for families that are trying to prioritize their finances and importantly their time, when they say yes to a garden, they're saying no to these other things. If you were in the court of law and testifying of why this matters so much that people and schools and communities should go out of their way to do this, what what say you?

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Well, a couple of things. Surprisingly, I told you I have 100 beds. You know how much time I spend on that? I probably spend an hour and a half, two hours in the morning. So I get up very early. I'm up at 3.22 for whatever reason. But 322. That's my number.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

That is I have no idea. Strangely specific. You set an alarm?

SPEAKER_00 26:19

No.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

You wake up at 3.22.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

My body can do it automatically now. Interesting. I don't even have to.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

I'd love to hear listeners' take on why that is.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

But I do my sunrise walk with my box or pearl at 5 a.m. And then once it starts to get light outside, I'll spend an hour and a half, two hours, you know, out there. And once you start to get it dialed in, you get the weeds under control. The process I use, because the compost I use doesn't have any weed seeds. And if you're not flipping the soil, then you don't have the weed pressure. But what say you is the pocket garden system is very inexpensive. There's no raised beds to rot out. So the cattle panel trellises, surprisingly, are like $30 for a cattle panel. So from a cost perspective, it's not that much compared to other things. But the other thing I would say, when people do the tour, I say there's so many layers of healing going on. So it's not just, you know, people talk about the $25 tomato that they took forever to grow. It's way more than that because people, I'll go to the coffee shop after I've been out farming in the morning, and I'm in such a good mood. They're like, Why are you in such a good mood? I was like, I don't know. I've just been farming. It's fun, you know, and you'll find that your mental head space will be so much better. So therapy just for the mind, getting your the sunshine in the morning, good for you. So the benefits. So I would say a four-way pocket garden, which is typical what would happen in a residential, you can maintain that for 15 minutes, 30 minutes a day. Just that little bit of caring for it will produce, if done right, will produce, you know, so many carrots or radishes or fresh dark leafy greens. There are different greens you can grow in the summer, surprisingly. Right now we're in the middle of peak kale season. So kale is amazing. It has super high vitamin A, super high vitamin C. A carrot, I tell kids there's more vitamin A in the carrot top than the carrot itself. So both are good.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

I love the layers of healing, but also the layers of learning. Yes. Like I feel like you're swapping, you know, back and forth between a little educational snippet and a healing snippet, which I think perfectly describes what you have going on. This has been such an interesting conversation. As we wrap, I would love for you to tell people where they can engage more with maybe their own garden or what you have going on and any future projects that you think people should know about.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Everything is at pickedapperfection.com. So Instagram, Facebook, text me, and I'll give you a farm tour and you can learn more there also. If you happen to be at a school that we support, certainly go by and see the garden if I'm there, or one of the hopefully UWF students is there.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Well, thank you so much. This has been incredible. I'm so glad that you are doing this work.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Okay. Thank you. It's been fun.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of Scambia County Public School.