The great pumpkin plot of North Powder

Valerie Tachenko didn’t mind being called the wrong name, as long as the youngsters were having fun planting pumpkins.

“One boy hollered “Mrs. Farmer, is my hole big enough?” she says, still laughing about it a week later.

Tachenko, who works a four-acre garden for her CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and local farmers markets, is working with Oregon Rural Action and Powder Valley School in the Farm-to-School program.

On May 1, she took peat pots, soil and pumpkin seeds to students in kindergarten and grades 1 and 2.

“All the kids planted a pumpkin seed. They named them, bonded with them,” she said.

For the next month the students kept an eye on their sprouts.

“We watered and tended them,” said Chris Aldrich, who teaches first grade.

Every few days the students measured their plants’ progress and wrote a journal entry describing how each budding vine looked.

After eating lunch outside, the children claimed spots along the plastic-covered row and dug holes to accommodate their plants.

“They all have a little stick with their name on one side, and the pumpkin’s name on the other,” Tachenko said.

Then they all worked together to create wire hoops to support row cover that protects the plants from frost.

“They got to do the whole process,” Tachenko said.

She hopes the experience helps the kids understand where food comes from, and that it’s pretty easy to grow your own.

“It’s just another chance at exposure,” she said. “It’s about teaching others — it’s not a secretive thing.”

Plus, the kids had fun.

“I’ve done a lot of field trips, and it was the most interactive, hands-on field trip we’ve had,” Aldrich said.

Tachenko will post photographs of the pumpkins throughout the summer on her Web site — www.valsveggies.com — so the children can track the progress.

In October, the students will return to measure the vines and harvest a pumpkin to take home. Aldrich said the teachers also hope to harvest a couple extra to use in recipes in the classroom.

“It’s about the cycle from the seed to the harvest to the mouth,” she said.

In addition, Powder Valley has a school garden with eight beds and a corn patch, another project of the Farm-to-School program.

Grant money has helped establish the garden, Aldrich said, and will provide a stipend for a part-time caretaker this summer. Several people have also volunteered to water and weed each week, and the summer school program will also incorporate garden work into their day.

The school hopes to purchase storage for the produce that keeps, such as potatoes, and Aldrich said there are plans to help the cooks prep the fresh vegetables for use in the student meals.

“It’s right from the field to the fork,” she said.