News : Youth Garden offers lessons on horticulture

Jonathan Kreutner, Kaitlyn Halstead, Sarah Kruetner, Martha Neuzil, Gene Mealhow.

Community Youth Garden lesson: Gene Mealhow explains how pollination helps corn ears develop.

Mealhow shows Sarah Kreutner the details of how her corn develops late in the growing season.

Martha Neuzil helps Sarah and Jonathan Kreutner plant lettuce and spinach.

Potato harvest: Martha Neuzil helps Kaitlyn Halstead dig potatoes in the Community Youth Garden.

The first goal of the Community Youth Garden was to turn a flood-damaged area into a beautiful place where good things could grow.

The second goal was to help area youngsters learn more about horticulture.

Despite the damage caused to the garden by the July 11 storm, it is clear that the garden is, indeed, teaching area youth more about how and why plants grow.

Several of the youth who have been working the garden this year gathered there for some horticulture lessons from Gene Mealhow, who has his own popcorn farm near Shellsburg.

Mealhow looked at the tall corn that Sarah Kreutner planted as part of the Iowa magazine's tall corn contest. Mealhow gave Sarah and others some tips on how corn grows, and what people can to do help their crops. Mealhow explained how the corn stalks grow by developing new root sources to reach for nutrients, and how the ears mature when the corn begins draining nutrients from its leaves to fill the seed kernels. He also explained some ways to prepare the soil for next year's crop.

Volunteer Martha Neuzil also helped the students. She worked with Kaitlyn Halstead, who planted her very first potatoes this spring. On Monday, Martha showed Kaitlyn how to use a pitchfork to dig up the potatoes that her plants produced. Martha also showed Sarah and her brother, Jonathon, how to plant spinach and lettuce in the fall. The plants will be covered before winter.

The youth also discussed the tomato garden with Mealhow.