Today's Take: Area youth learn importance of gardening

• Eight community gardens in Green Bay incorporate gardens for children
• The kids visit the gardens once a week to check on the plants and learn about healthy lifestyles
• When food becomes available%2C the children can take home the fruits of their labor

Tiny hands reached for gardening trowels and patted soil, pausing only to examine a caterpillar enjoying a shady spot under a basil plant.

Four children busily worked under the hot summer sun at Olde North Garden, located on the corner of Smith Street and North Irwin Avenue on Monday afternoon.

"With this program, specifically with the children, it's about teaching what it means to have a seed and what that looks like when we bring it to the plate," said Troy Streckenbach, Brown County executive. "They have a better understanding of the nutritional value and how that food came to be."

For the duration of the summer, the youngsters have made a weekly stop — taking a break from their normal summer activities at various community parks — to plant, water and pull weeds for various vegetables and flowers at the community garden.

The day's activities began with all the children standing in a circle. Everyone took turns naming their favorite fruit or vegetable.

"My favorite fruit is watermelon," said one young boy.

"My name's Adrian, and I like oranges," added another.

Asian pears, broccoli, cucumbers and raspberries were also named out loud.

"What we know as a community is the more you intake healthy foods, the better your body is and the stronger your mind is," Streckenbach said to the group. "So we're trying to encourage you — both the understanding on how to take care of the plants because it teaches responsibility and all kinds of great life skills, but it also gives you the opportunity to understand everything you put in your mouth has a direct relation to how healthy you are."

On Monday, the children prepared the garden for fall by planting Swiss chard, kale, marigolds and pansies and learned about gardening techniques and foods that flourish during cooler months. The Olde North Garden includes 33 raised garden beds, three handicap-accessible raised beds and a children's garden.

"I think it's really important because lots of them don't know where their food comes from," said Margaret Franchino, an AmeriCorp Vista employee working on community garden efforts at the Brown County University of Wisconsin-Extension office. "Some say, 'I've never tried a cucumber,' and things like that. I think it's really important to have exposure early on so they have healthy living habits throughout their lives."

Throughout Green Bay, there are eight community gardens incorporating the help from area youth, said Franchino. The gardens were developed in a partnership between the Brown County UW-Extension, the city of Green Bay and Leadership Green Bay, a community-based leadership program.

When the program started this summer, kids were taught basic lessons about weeds, and by the end of the summer the children will have taken home an assortment of vegetables, all grown and cared for by themselves.

Tomatoes, peppers, green beans, radishes, basil and an assortment of flowers are all grown at the Olde North Garden, Franchino said.

"They look forward to it," Franchino said of the kids' weekly stops at the gardens. The children dug up radishes to bring home that day.

— Rachel Minske is a Press-Gazette Media reporter. rminske@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter at @rachelfminske.