Fostering the Farmers of Tomorrow
Arguably, children are learning more specialized skill sets in school than many of us ever did in traditional curriculums. Schools are preparing their students to succeed in our current landscape, offering a big push on technological fluency. But how do we bring kids back to their roots and learn about the agricultural prowess of Wisconsin and the process of growing your own food?
In comes Shea Zastrow of Everything Grows. Zastrow is invested in the minds of Wisconsin’s youth, so Everything Grows visits a myriad of schools in southeastern Wisconsin and offers an interactive experience for kids to learn the importance of proper nutrients and sustainable agricultural practices. What’s the best way to get children to learn about soil? Let them get their hands dirty.
Zastrow sets up four soil mixing stations to help the kids learn about soil composition and what any plant needs to grow. Not only does this offer a tactile immersive experience for the kids, but he is able to explain the growth process in a way that is easy to understand. Zastrow says, “Teaching that there’s a choice is important, good options to eat and not so good options to eat. But even presenting that concept, I wish someone would have come into my school and taught that…”
“When it comes to education, it’s not a competition, it’s about efficiency. That four station soil mixing is efficient.” In one school gymnasium, Zastrow can cycle multiple classes of students through and he says that through this interactive experience, “We can teach more to a group of scholars in a matter of 40 minutes than a lot of folks can.”
Zastrow offers even more than soil education when he visits schools. One of his activities is the store-bought vs. farm-fresh egg test challenge. “We’ve got yellow yolks vs. orange yolks. You see the nutrition, you taste the nutrition, and we even talk about happy chickens vs. sad chickens, I mean who wants to be in a cage their whole lives and who wants to roam on a farm and eat freely whenever they want?”
In addition to cultivating the minds of local youths, Zastrow brings his knowledge of soil to local farmers markets. He carries a special microbial soil chock full of African nightcrawler casings as well as a fish emulsion that promotes the growth and health of any plant’s root system. “My soil has microbial life in it, and it is the microbial life that is the single greatest reason why your plants do well naturally. They nibble on the root system of the plant, cleaning it so that it can grow faster, stronger and longer,” Zastrow says, “It’s their excretion and waste that is the single greatest source of plant food on the planet.”
Zastrow’s liquid fish emulsion is another way to feed your plants the nutrients they need. “Nitrogen is a portion of the breakfast, lunch and dinner for any root system; plant, tree or flower. Over time, they’re going to consistently suck that nitrogen out so you have to find different ways to replenish it, and it is best to look for natural options. People have been putting fish in soil for thousands of years, I just created an easier way to apply it.”
By focusing on Milwaukee’s youth, Everything Grows is inspiring the next generation of farmers and growers of what Zastrow calls, “Real food.” Not only is he planting a metaphorical seed of sustainability in these youngster’s lives, he actively demonstrates the importance of including youth in our current food landscape, and from there he hopes that their passion for food follows what he teaches in his soil workshops: that “Everything Grows.”
