Class teaches kids how to get a green thumb

Iowa may be known “as a place to grow” but one agricultural expert says many Iowa kids are clueless about where their food comes from — beyond the grocery store.Many Iowa homes -used- to be bordered by vegetable gardens and weeding and picking was a daily chore for plenty of children. Horticulturist Linda Naeve says the days of victory gardens –and even flower gardens– are long gone. Naeve teaches a youth gardening camp in Ames and says she’s amazed by the number of children who’ve never planted a seed in the ground and never harvested a tomato. Naeve helped develop curriculum that’s been used by 15-hundred Iowa teachers on 30-thousand kids. She says it uses indoor and outdoor classrooms to integrate agriculture, natural resources and nutrition around the theme of gardening.Children need to know their roots, especially in the nation’s top corn-producing state. They don’t know what’s growing out there in the field and they need to know where their food comes from, other than a box. Naeve is the education director at Iowa State University’s Reiman Gardens. She’ll give a talk February 17th especially for kids at the Home and Garden Show in Des Moines.