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When Heather Zanella’s 4-year-old son, Grayson, told her he wanted to plant french fries in the garden, she decided it was time for some agricultural education.
“I thought it would be a learning moment for them to plant potatoes and see how they’re grown,” she said.
The Zanella family signed up for Fort Leavenworth’s Victory Gardens earlier this year, a program run by the Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation. Members of the community can rent plots of land for gardening on post. Although the Kansas growing season is drawing to a close, vegetable plots are still available.
Josh Stephens, business manager for outdoor equipment rental, said garden plots per season are $30 for a 36-foot by 45-foot plot or $50 for a 36-foot by 70-foot plot. Each plot has access to water, hoses on site and a storage bin available for gardening tools. Stephens said there are about 27 plots, all west of the Information Operations Proponent Office, 950 Bluntville Ave. For more information, call 684-3395.
Lt. Col. Gretchen Manus, another gardener, said she enjoys being outdoors with her three children, Samuel, 8, Benjamin, 7, and Isaiah, 3. Their father, Lt. Col. Brian Manus, is in Afghanistan.
The Manus family found Victory Gardens one day while exploring Fort Leavenworth. They had tried gardening on military installations before — at their home near Fort Polk, La., and at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. — but said Fort Leavenworth’s is the best they’ve seen so far.
“This is great because you’re allowed to get a huge amount of space,” Gretchen said.
She learned to garden while participating in 4-H as a child, and also picks up tips from other gardeners at the Fort Leavenworth site. This is the Manuses’ second year gardening at Fort Leavenworth.
“The boys love it,” she said. “Last year they helped put up potatoes and store them for winter. So they are totally into growing your own food.”
Maj. James Zanella, who began studying at the School of Advanced Military Studies a few weeks ago, said the garden is a needed source of stress relief — where his only enemies are cabbage moths, deer and crabgrass.
“I really enjoy it,” he said. “I find it a nice break to get outdoors and do something with my hands.”
Zanella said his previous job with the Battle Command Training Program, now Mission Command Training Program, had a rigorous deployment schedule that made it tough to work in a vegetable garden. Additionally, his family moves often with his various military assignments and lives in military housing, so it’s not easy for them to have a vegetable garden. But with his assignment at SAMS, he’s using his spare time to grow vegetables — his first chance to “set down roots” in Kansas.
Zanella said vegetable gardening has given him a new perspective on the history of farming in the U.S. and respect for Americans who depended on home gardening as a food source.
“It just makes me have more respect for the founding fathers and the pioneers, and what they had to do to grow food,” he said.
His wife Heather used gardening advice from her grandfather, a farmer in Tennessee,
“He loves it that the boys are learning how to farm,” she said.
Daily, the boys use their frog watering cans on each of the plants and help their mom and dad hoe weeds.
On a hot July morning, the boys were delighted to find zucchini the size of their arms. Tomatoes from the cherry tomato plant Heather put in the ground a few months ago were ripe. Corn was beginning to flower into tassels and peppers were beginning to bloom. Deer ate the first of the family’s green bean crop, but Heather hopes that more will come.
Grayson’s potato plants won’t be ready until later in the season.
“Hopefully by the end of this fall, Grayson will know where french fries come from,” she said.
When Heather Zanella’s 4-year-old son, Grayson, told her he wanted to plant french fries in the garden, she decided it was time for some agricultural education.
“I thought it would be a learning moment for them to plant potatoes and see how they’re grown,” she said.
The Zanella family signed up for Fort Leavenworth’s Victory Gardens earlier this year, a program run by the Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation. Members of the community can rent plots of land for gardening on post. Although the Kansas growing season is drawing to a close, vegetable plots are still available.
Josh Stephens, business manager for outdoor equipment rental, said garden plots per season are $30 for a 36-foot by 45-foot plot or $50 for a 36-foot by 70-foot plot. Each plot has access to water, hoses on site and a storage bin available for gardening tools. Stephens said there are about 27 plots, all west of the Information Operations Proponent Office, 950 Bluntville Ave. For more information, call 684-3395.
Lt. Col. Gretchen Manus, another gardener, said she enjoys being outdoors with her three children, Samuel, 8, Benjamin, 7, and Isaiah, 3. Their father, Lt. Col. Brian Manus, is in Afghanistan.
The Manus family found Victory Gardens one day while exploring Fort Leavenworth. They had tried gardening on military installations before — at their home near Fort Polk, La., and at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. — but said Fort Leavenworth’s is the best they’ve seen so far.
“This is great because you’re allowed to get a huge amount of space,” Gretchen said.
She learned to garden while participating in 4-H as a child, and also picks up tips from other gardeners at the Fort Leavenworth site. This is the Manuses’ second year gardening at Fort Leavenworth.
“The boys love it,” she said. “Last year they helped put up potatoes and store them for winter. So they are totally into growing your own food.”
Maj. James Zanella, who began studying at the School of Advanced Military Studies a few weeks ago, said the garden is a needed source of stress relief — where his only enemies are cabbage moths, deer and crabgrass.
“I really enjoy it,” he said. “I find it a nice break to get outdoors and do something with my hands.”
Zanella said his previous job with the Battle Command Training Program, now Mission Command Training Program, had a rigorous deployment schedule that made it tough to work in a vegetable garden. Additionally, his family moves often with his various military assignments and lives in military housing, so it’s not easy for them to have a vegetable garden. But with his assignment at SAMS, he’s using his spare time to grow vegetables — his first chance to “set down roots” in Kansas.
Zanella said vegetable gardening has given him a new perspective on the history of farming in the U.S. and respect for Americans who depended on home gardening as a food source.
“It just makes me have more respect for the founding fathers and the pioneers, and what they had to do to grow food,” he said.
His wife Heather used gardening advice from her grandfather, a farmer in Tennessee,
“He loves it that the boys are learning how to farm,” she said.
Daily, the boys use their frog watering cans on each of the plants and help their mom and dad hoe weeds.
On a hot July morning, the boys were delighted to find zucchini the size of their arms. Tomatoes from the cherry tomato plant Heather put in the ground a few months ago were ripe. Corn was beginning to flower into tassels and peppers were beginning to bloom. Deer ate the first of the family’s green bean crop, but Heather hopes that more will come.
Grayson’s potato plants won’t be ready until later in the season.
“Hopefully by the end of this fall, Grayson will know where french fries come from,” she said.
