Celeste Finney and Tyne Bankester

If you have ever thought that gardening is an activity suited only for older children and adults, think again. The Child Development Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL), which provides childcare and preschool for children of ULL students, faculty and staff, has strong evidence to the contrary.

Three years ago, Denise Hebert, a prekindergarten teacher at the center, started a small garden for her students and the center. Since then, the school garden and student experiences within it have been growing and expanding both inside and outside the classroom. The garden began in 2021 with help from the LSU AgCenter farm to school program, which is now developing ways to help more childhood educators across the state reach more children.

“A parent brought me information from LSU AgCenter’s Seeds to Success: The Louisiana Farm to School Program, and we started by signing up to receive a windowsill kit and then we grew beans and cucumbers,” Hebert said. “Now we are growing several containers, and the kids love it.”

The garden has become a cornerstone of Hebert’s classroom culture and experiences for the littlest of learners. Students ranging in age from 1 to 6 years old take care of the plants, watch them grow and learn about different things in the garden from insects to weather, all before they are in kindergarten. Susan Arceneaux, director of the Child Development Center, explains that starting at 1 year old, the children are watering the plants daily and talking about what they observe.

“It is a skill just like any other,” Arceneaux said. “If you can teach a child a nursery rhyme, you can also teach them about gardening and plants.”

Over the past few years, participation in farm to school programming within early childhood education (ECE) has increased at an exponential rate across the country. Research performed at ECE institutions has shown that these programs benefit young children by increasing vegetable intake and a willingness to try new foods. Because farm to school participation has historically focused on K-12 integration, resources to support ECE farm to school programming are much more limited. The Seeds to Success team received overwhelming feedback from early childhood educators that they often feel left out of farm to school programming.

The Seeds to Success team has taken this feedback seriously and is working diligently to launch a new pre-K and ECE component to the Seeds to Success website under “Seeds to Know.” This section of the website houses curriculum that has already been vetted and aligned to state standards. Starting in spring 2024, ECE teachers are now able to access a lesson and resource library that has lessons and support materials appropriate for ECE environments.

The Seeds to Success team is taking this a step further by developing a “Growing Minds Toolkit for ECE,” which will provide standard-aligned lesson plans, recipe suggestions, parent newsletters and coloring sheets, with one Louisiana Harvest of the Month product for each segment. Unlike other toolkits that have been prepared for use over a traditional school year, the ECE toolkit will be broken into 12 sections to better serve childcare centers that remain open 12 months out of the year. All installments are scheduled to be released in spring 2025.

Although early childhood may have the reputation of being too young for such involved hands-on activities, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s program has continued to show parent and student engagement as they get deeper into farm to school programming. Children are naturally curious about the world around them and are excited to see the plants grow and then taste what the plant produces. These children in turn have a better chance of developing healthy eating behaviors because of this encounter with gardening. It is never too early to start teaching little ones about the fun in a garden.

Celeste Finney was an extension associate for Seeds to Success: The Louisiana Farm to School Program. Tyne Bankester is the program manager for curriculum integration and MarketMaker for the program.

This article appears in the fall 2024 edition of Louisiana Agriculture.

Denise Hebert, right, a teacher at the Child Development Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette has spearheaded a school garden for the preschool center. Susan Arceneaux, left, the director of the center, sees the value in educating young children about growing food. Photo by Kyle Peveto