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Students In Berry Business

Tampa Tribune staff photo/Greg Fight.

Turkey Creek Middle School 7th-graders Kennedy Dean, left, and Nikki Homaker, right, both 12, join classmates as they tend to newly-planted strawberry plants in the school's field.

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By GEORGE H. NEWMAN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 17, 2007

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PLANT CITY - Students at two local middle schools are learning to grow strawberries without leaving campus.

Local growers have provided materials and expertise to establish fields where students can learn to grow the area's most famous crop.

About 200 agriculture students at Turkey Creek Middle School and 250 at Tomlin Middle School are learning skills that will help them carry on a farming tradition in the area that dates back almost 100 years. Most of the nation's winter strawberries are grown on farms in Plant City and the surrounding region.

"Planting strawberries and harvesting them for profit is an exercise these students will long remember," said Michael Drake, Turkey Creek's agricultural teacher.

His students may never have had the experience if strawberry farmer Sam Astin had not become involved. Astin, 43, is a third-generation strawberry farmer who cultivates almost 500 acres in the Plant City area. He also operates an exchange that was recently expanded to 50,000 square feet where strawberries and off-season vegetables are boxed, stored and cooled.

"My grandfather started the business over 50 years ago," Astin said. "My father continued the business, and I followed their lead. I grew up on the farm. My dad gave me an acre of land to farm when I was 13. I prepared the ground; planted and harvested the crop; packed and sold it to a vegetable broker."

Drake was thrilled when the Astin family volunteered time and material to help the agricultural program at the school, 5005 S. Turkey Creek Road.

"Sam's wife, Buffy, called me this summer," Drake said. "Their daughter Madison is a student here. She is an FFA member and takes ag science. Buffy asked if I would be interested in our FFA students planting and harvesting strawberries this school year. We have done similar projects in the past but nothing on the scale imagined by the people at Sam Astin Farms."

Astin Farms provided the equipment to clear, till, prepare and irrigate about 3 acres on school property on the east side of Turkey Creek Road, across the street from the main campus. Agriculture students will plant and care for Festival variety strawberries and other crops such as pole beans, broccoli, sweet onions and cauliflower.

Tomlin Middle School launched a similar berry-growing operation this year on a little less than an acre at the school at 501 N. Woodrow Wilson St. The property was used for a small garden last year.

Ag science teachers Jason Steward and Greg Lehman worked with a host of people, including parents, farmers, volunteers and FFA supporters.

Lehman said farmer Todd Alexander, parents Kent and Cindy Cook, grower Rick Chancey, Triangle Chemical Co. and Hinton Farms in Dover helped get the ground prepared and the crop into the ground.

Early in the school year, volunteers and parents helped the agriculture students repair an old irrigation system west of the school building. Strawberries were grown there by students in the mid-1990s.

With the irrigation up and running, the ground tilled and the rows covered with plastic by Alexander, the students were ready to plant.

Hinton Farms recommended growers who might have plants they could donate to the school, said Cammy Hinton at Hinton Farms.

Chancey, who could not be reached for comment, supplied the sprigs of Festival variety strawberry plants.

Both schools will sell their crops and plow the profits back into their agriculture programs.

The Turkey Creek strawberries and other produce will be sold by the students to vegetable brokers in the area. The strawberries will also be sold at a roadside stand near the school.

Drake said the proceeds from the sales will be put back into the ag class to help pay for special events such as cookouts and field trips, such as a recent trip to an agriculture expo in Moultrie, Ga.

"The school couldn't finance this project or the special events for the students. We let projects like the growing field help foot the bill," he said.

The strawberry and vegetable profits will also help stock a private fish pond on the school property used by ag students, a plant nursery and cattle tended by the students on land nearby.

At Tomlin, the strawberry crop will be sold at fruit stands nearby and on the Florida Strawberry Festival grounds.

"We most likely will take orders from parents and teachers at the school first," Lehman said. "I have talked with some of the growers who store and sell strawberries locally. The plan isn't completed, but it's in the works. We'll operate like a business, with the students monitoring costs, maintenance, labor and cash flow."

The profits from sales will be used to buy equipment needed by the school agriculture program.

Student Kallee Cook, 13, the Tomlin FFA secretary, said last year's school garden crop was small compared with this year.

"Last year the rows weren't protected by plastic," Cook said. "We had weeds and erosion making the ground harder to maintain. We are having more fun out there this year. Some of the families are involved in the entire effort."

As the strawberry season plays out in February and March, the Tomlin students plan to grow a winter crop of peppers, spinach and other greens.

Reporter George H. Newman can be reached at (813) 865-4451 or gnewman@tampatrib.com.

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