The Clinton County High School Agriculture Program is thriving under the direction of second year Ag teacher Ben Prewitt. With weather conditions outside not suitable for growing just yet, students have taken to the greenhouse and started planting for spring.

“We have started the germination process and we have decided to start all of our vegetables from seed this year,” Prewitt said. “All of our flowers we did plugs, so here lately the kids have been sewing seeds to germinate all our vegetables.”

During the past week, students have been working hard to get the plants and flowers ready to sell during the spring months.

“We are planning on having a variety of stuff including petunias, dahlias, calibrachoa, sunflowers, marigolds, snap dragons, geraniums, and I’m sure I’m forgetting half of them. We have a large variety of flowers this year.”

Prewitt hopes that by the time April rolls around, people will come out and check out what they have to offer.

“Hopefully we can help people with their landscaping and gardening needs,” Prewitt said.

The projects that are done in the greenhouse and through the Ag classes are used to help raise money for the local Future Farmers of America Chapter at Clinton County High School.

The FFA uses the sale of the plants as their major fund-raiser for the year.

“We certainly can’t charge as much as some of these other places because we are within the school system, but we make enough to where these kids can go on a couple trips and buy FFA jackets. It really helps us out through the year with funding,” Prewitt said.

Growing and selling plants throughout the spring is something that teaches the students valuable lessons they can take with them. Prewitt also said he is not out to put the commercial growers out of business by any means.

“I just hope some of these kids can come back to the community and do this someday. There’s not a whole lot of people left who really just do commercial greenhouses,” Prewitt said. “There’s Cravens Greenhouse and they do an excellent job and there is a place or two in Burkesville and Monticello, but it’s just not a market where there is a ton of people in. Being in a rural community, not everyone is cut out for college. This is a trade anyone can learn. I think everyone needs to learn how to grow their own food. These kids have really sparked an interest in the last year or so and I’m beyond blessed with the help. They like being out there and they do too, so it’s a win-win situation for us.”

One thing Prewitt hopes his students get out of this experience is knowledge.

“I don’t think anyone can know too much in this industry. With the population growing and with the projections saying there is going to be twice as many people on this earth by 2050,” Prewitt said. “These kids are going to have to learn how to feed people and feed themselves. Number one I want them to have fun. I want them to be able to do something outside other than just looking in a text book and writing notes. This is just a hands on type of thing that the vast majority of the students love.”

Other than the spring, Prewitt said they have other fund-raisers during the fall part of the year that help with the FFA expenses.

“This upcoming year we are going to have another mum sale,” Prewitt said. “We thought about doing Poinsettias around Christmas time. They are a lot of maintenance, but that’s another fund-raiser that would get the kids outside with some hands-on type stuff. Most of our greenhouse stuff will be in the spring.”

Other than growing and selling plants, Prewitt said they do other things in the fall to help the school out.

“We do a lot with the football field and the baseball and softball fields and do some of that maintenance and stuff in the fall,” Prewitt said. “We just try to get the fields looking better for when that stuff rolls around. I try to incorporate as much hands on stuff as I can. With some of the Ag kids, they might not be some of the best students in some of these core classes, but this field, agriculture, kind of sparks interest and there is still plenty of money to be made in this area.”

Having an outlet for the students other than the normal school work is important according to Prewitt.

“I think it’s great,” Prewitt said. “Not everybody is going to be a doctor or a lawyer … these kids really have an opportunity, especially where they are growing up, in agriculture or horticulture with animal sciences … cattle, horses or chickens. We have a little bit of everything here. I think its increasingly important.”

Students at Clinton County High School worked hard last Thursday to plant flowers in pots to get ready for their spring fund-raiser. Proceeds from the sale of the plants go to the Future Farmers of America (FFA) local chapter to provide funding for trips and FFA jackets for the students.