Spring at Union County High School
By Helina Bailey

Spring is in the air and Union County High School is bustling with excitement. Service learners in the agriculture department have been incredibly busy these last couple of weeks. Although they have quite a few projects in the works, the most impressive is the aquaponic system the students have built. In the fall, the class partnered with Trout Unlimited to hatch and raise their own rainbow trout. With guidance from their instructor on how to make an aquaponic system, the students built a functioning system to filter the ammonia out of the tank and convert it into nitrogen (fertilizer) for their herbs and veggies.

Using PVC pipes, grow lights, and some recycled materials, the students created their own aquaponic tank adjacent to their trout tank. After designing their tank, they created a system with a bell siphon to pump the water back into the trout tank, being careful not to drown their root systems. Once they were set up, the students branched out from lettuce and planted an array of herbs of veggies. They worried that cold water the trout require would stunt or kill vegetables so they experimented to see which type of plants would flourish. Lettuce and spinach are the clear winners, but broccoli and radish are doing well.

Pretty soon the students will venture out of the classroom to release their trout into the wild. In order to give them the best chance at survival, they are waiting as long as possible. In the meantime, the growing trout have begun escaping from their tank in Finding Nemo style. Over the past few weeks, the students and teacher discovered fish that had jumped out of the tank onto the floor. These escape artists wait until the room is vacant to make their great escape, this seems to be especially true during heavy rain, so the students built a wire net to cover the tank until they are ready to be released.

In addition to their trout project, the students are hard at work preparing for their annual plant sale in April. They have started germinating hundreds of herbs and veggies. Ornamental cuttings and plugs arrived last week and have already been transplanted. The greenhouse is quickly filling up with baby plants as the students gear up for their spring sale. You can expect to find a large variety of garden plants, ornamental succulents, and flowers.

Tomatoes and peppers will be in abundance, with the students continuously planting them all month. Last year they ran out of veggies, so they are planting more this year to ensure they are prepared to supply the community with affordable plants. As always, the money raised at the plant sale will go directly into the program to fund more projects and purchase the materials for next year's plant sale.