- Howdy, I'm John Hart Asher.

This week on Central Texas Gardener, we're saluting the kids who love to grow as much as the grownups.

As part of our 30th season celebration, we're looking back on some of the standout kids who've really made a splash over the years.

From budding chefs to gardening club growers, we'll also catch up with Addison and Ian McKenna, whose giving garden has only continued to grow.

So let's get growing right here, right now.

- [Presenter] Central Texas Gardener's 30th season is made possible by Lisa and Desi Rhoden, supporting a love of gardening and nature for all communities.

- [Presenter 2] Want to know what happens to your recycled plastic?

Since 2004, HEB has turned 58 million pounds of recycled plastic into things like composite decking and Field & Future by HEB trash bags.

You can learn more at ourtexasourfuture.com.

(bright music) - Over the years here on CTG, we've seen no shortage of impressive, inspiring kids who love growing as much as the grownups do.

So today, we're taking time to look back on some of those young gardeners who really made a mark.

Beginning with the gardening club students at Oak Hill Elementary.

- [Teacher] Put your fingers down low, grab and pull up.

- This is moss, it grows in shady wet areas.

- Awesome.

- [Child] This is my rightful cricket.

I catched it by myself.

- One time I captured a toad and then I didn't like put my hand over him and he didn't jump away.

He just stayed on my hand.

- [Presenter] At Oak Hill Elementary, kids are taking things into their own hands with garden tools.

In their twice weekly afterschool gardening club, teacher Paul Cumings guides curious, energetic minds and hands to learn about the birds and the bees and the butterflies.

It's also about problem solving and creating.

- And along this fence, we're also going to be trying to grow some grapes or some other type of vine that will grow here.

- [Presenter] Principal Catherine Mitchell champions how the students nurture their school and their education.

- Grab some weeds.

- [Presenter] Definitely it's a team effort.

- I thought this would be one way I could get out and be involved with the kids and see what kind of plants are around because I'm pretty new to Texas.

- [Presenter] Now retired teacher Sue Lagerquist, helped start gardening club to connect students to their food's origins.

- The design of the original beds was all the kids got together in groups and had little pieces of paper and sort of designed and then voted on the design.

And then we built and tried to put it as close to their design as we could.

I think the whole thing of gardening is really important to the kids.

There's an opportunity for them to learn about where their food comes from.

Plus there's a sense of accomplishment.

- I like to see the vegetables grow because I like to see like the different stages because at first they're like flowers.

And then they're vegetables and then you get to pick them.

- It's important the vegetables because they're nutritious for you.

- We buy an assortment of plants and sort of let them try to pick what they want.

We've also had some success with kale.

They always want to taste the food and so that they can taste the kale and they actually will try the kale where they normally would not.

It's a little bitter, but they grew it, so they like it.

- When I see a tomato, I just like get the tomato and then wash it because it will have like dirt or something and I eat it.

And we do try to include some flowering, just flowers to mix in with them so that those also attract as pollinators.

- [Presenter] In late May, the garden bids goodbye to the students, except for families who tend it through summer.

- I've been helping out with the garden with my mom and brother over the summer to take care of the garden.

And I don't like the heat, but I know I'll get used to it.

- [Presenter] When the students return in fall, they prep for winter's crops.

- These things all need to come out.

Because this is what we want to replant next week is any of these spaces, we want to put in some new soil and some compost and then put in some new plants.

- [Presenter] A fifth grader raised a $500 grant to build the giving garden, also supported by local businesses to help feed families.

- It all started with a simple grant my brother won.

And my brother's name is Ian McKenna.

- [Presenter] Their young orchard instills the value of nurturing the future.

- [Speaker] Trying to support good food.

- Rain barrel collection teaches water conservation that's certainly in their future.

When the PTA bought picnic tables, gardening club spiced things up with pots of herbs.

- See all the roots?

- [Student] Yeah, you can break them.

- [Teacher] Now you want to loosen it up a little bit.

And then put it in that hole right there.

- [Student] Loosen it up.

- [Teacher] That's plenty.

That's plenty.

That's plenty.

Okay, and now we're going to cover it back up.

- And that's how you plant things.

- They're still getting established, but the staff or the families can come by and if they know what they're cooking tonight, they can pinch off some fresh herbs and take it home.

- [Presenter] For pretty inspiration to start and end the day, Gardening Club turned scrappy grass into a perennial butterfly and bee garden.

- [Teacher] It's got four sides, so I call it the quadrilateral butterfly garden because we can tie it into math that way (laughs).

- [Presenter] When second graders release the butterflies they've raised, everyone can watch the cycle of life again outdoors.

- The kids notice the chrysalises and we were walking back from our special areas down the sidewalk and all of a sudden, three or four kids were all crowded around the fence.

I'm like, "Come on guys, we've got to go."

"...But look!"

And they pointed to it and there sure enough, dangling there was a little chrysalis.

And so we watched it every day and then all of a sudden one day it was gone.

- [Presenter] Teacher Rachel Mendrek took the lead for the best drought-tough plants, and parents donated milkweed as monarch larval hosts.

Already, the students learned adaptability.

- We had one plant that didn't make it after the late freeze.

So I said, "Well, we have this space right now.

What can we do?"

So I had the kids make water saucers.

So the butterflies or bees or birds or whatever wildlife comes by could have a place to drink.

We asked the art teacher if, they were getting ready to do their clay unit and I said, "Hey, do you think my class could make some water saucers that would hold water?"

And she said, "Yeah, we could do that."

And so the kids made those in their art class and they glazed them and they fired them and now they're part of the garden.

- [Presenter] At the front driveway, they've certainly turned things around with plants that get a lot of buzz and flitter from the wildlife all over them.

With another grant, Oak Hill went for habitat certification, complementing existing campus habitat with new trees and plants.

- And we got to make bird houses.

They're all over.

- We purchased wood and we measured it and we cut it and we nailed it.

And you know, let me just tell you, make sure you get the right size nails (laughs).

Because that was a lesson in frustration when the nails were a half inch too short.

- I liked pounding in the nails to keep it together.

And then I also liked painting it.

It was a mess when we painted.

I got paint all over my hands by accident.

- And many of the kids suggested us putting some sort of camera in one of them so that we could, if one did land in there, we could watch it.

- That's one of the robin houses right there.

- I think it's got a calming effect on them just to see nature in its place.

Over in the garden, we do have a water garden.

In the water garden there are mosquito fish.

And the kids just like to go and watch the fish swim.

We teach systems that the mosquito fish take care of the mosquito larvae and the fish are there for birds because often you'll find birds on the sides of the water lily.

So it's all working together in harmony.

- [Presenter] Between classroom and outdoor studies, Oak Hill students understand essential connectivity.

- I think the most interesting thing so far is all the movement and the life and the caterpillars, the crickets, the grasshoppers.

- And we have a greenhouse and the greenhouse, if you pull back this area of grass, a bunch of baby crickets come out because there's like a cricket nest.

- Yeah 'cause like... - They're like tiny-weeny.

They're like this big.

And then there's like these huge ones that just... - Yeah.

- It's about as organic as it gets here because we really are very limited on anything we can put on the plants.

And you do see a lot of bugs munching on it, but it's not just for human consumption.

You know, we're trying to support the whole ecosystem.

- I also like seeing friends, learning new things about gardening, helping the school with the gardens.

There's a whole bunch of stuff you can do that's fun in gardening club.

- We recently stopped back by Oak Hill Elementary and are happy to report that the school's gardens are looking better than ever, thanks to a new generation of young growers who've caught the gardening bug.

One of the students you saw in that blast from the past is Addison McKenna.

She actually returned to the show a few years later with her brother Ian to tell us the inspiring story behind the Giving Garden they started in their own backyard.

Here's a clip of their appearance together from 2017.

- Tell me how you, you started this, Ian.

- Yeah, so it mainly started because one day my sister came home and told me that there was a girl in her class who was upset because like she never got, Santa never came to her and she never got a meal outside of school.

And so I thought, well, I'm just a kid, so what can I do?

Then I realized, wait, they need healthy food.

And gardens can give you healthy food.

And I like to garden.

So I decided to start gardening.

And I didn't think it would be that big of a deal until I found out how many people that it affected.

- Right, so you put your brains together here and your efforts.

And I understand you're producing hundreds of pounds of fresh produce.

- Last year we had just in one of the gardens, 869 pounds.

- Wow, and you do a lot of this right in your own backyard, right?

- Yes, in our backyard, that's where that amount came from.

That's my Katie's Krops garden.

- Yeah, so this is something you do year round, spring and fall gardening.

- [Ian] Hunger never stops.

- Hunger never stops.

And apparently you two guys don't stop either.

Which is awesome.

- [Addison] We work no matter what, rain or shine.

- We always work.

- Right, well, how does that make you feel when you know you're meeting such an important need?

- Well, sometimes like when you give it to them in person, it's just like the expression and the reactions, it's always like they're like crying like sometimes you might think, did I do something wrong?

And then you realize that they're just crying out of, tears of joy.

- [Tom] Oh that's sweet.

- And it really makes you think, wow, if this is how it makes you feel, you want to do more.

- Yeah, well, I am blown away by what you guys are doing.

Do you have other kids who are joining in the effort?

- Well, with Katie's Krops, it's a nonprofit.

Like a national nonprofit.

- [Tom] Okay, cool.

- And they empower youth to grow gardens.

- Cool, well, I hope more people will learn about Katie's Krops, and we have loved learning about your great efforts on behalf of a lot of people out there in need.

So thank you so much for being on Central Texas Gardener.

- We wanted to know what Addison and Ian are up to these days.

So we recently dropped by to see what they've got growing down at their Giving Garden.

(gentle music) - It's been nine years since we appeared on CTG together.

And since then, our giving garden has only grown.

- We have been growing a lot of different things.

We've tried different varieties of some of our plants.

Right now we have a lot of fun, interesting fruits.

So we have a blue banana, we have a kiwi, we have a goji berry and a variety of different berries and fruit trees.

- Most of the things that we've been trying out have been working pretty well.

We always try to grow things that will work in our climate, the drought-resistant crops, high yield crops as well, but still making sure we at least have some fun with it.

I've grown five of the world's hottest peppers.

I've grown wax melons, which was fun.

The wax melon itself was, I want to say it was about three feet long.

So it was over a 100 pounds, I believe.

- [Interviewer] Did you guys eat those hot peppers?

- I did.

I ate the hot peppers, yes.

- I did not touch them.

I could not touch the plant.

I could not touch the pepper.

I could not eat the pepper.

- It hurt, but it was fine.

Yeah, I also made jerky using the peppers for spice.

(gentle music) This variety of cucumbers is a smaller variety.

So this guy here is actually ready.

The size of it doesn't matter.

It's what you're trying to do for people.

- There are a couple of ways that we will get the produce from our garden to the communities in need.

The first one is Pop-Up Farmers Markets, where we set up a table and we put out the produce and people can come and take what they need.

On occasion, we will go to the food bank, but we really like to do it face-to-face with the people we set up outside of their neighborhoods, near their neighborhoods in areas of high need that we're made aware of.

And we provide the produce at no cost and we help explain some ideas for recipes if they don't know how to cook a certain product.

- Katie's Krops has continued to support us with our gardens.

We've continued working with them.

And we have each also moved up within Katie's Krops.

I am now on the board of directors.

I am also the youngest member on the board of directors.

- And I'm an intern with them now for communications and grower outreach.

So I'm helping reach out to growers and provide them support and kind of being a communication liaison between the board members and the growers themselves.

And I am currently a junior at UT Austin studying communications and leadership.

I am part of an interdisciplinary major, but I chose to focus more on nonprofit leadership and philanthropy given that I have a background with nonprofit work given the Giving Garden and Katie's Krops.

After I finish undergrad, I'm not exactly sure what I want to do, possibly law school, but I know for certain that I want to continue gardening and growing and making a difference.

- [Ian] This is a pretty nice sized yellow squash.

- Little summer squash over here.

I'm very happy.

It's a very nice yellow as well.

Squash is definitely one of my go-tos.

But it's also one of the harder ones to grow because it's one of the ones that has a lot more pests that like to go for it.

I definitely think I'm a much better gardener today than back when we last spoke.

I went through Master Gardener certification through AgriLife Extension.

So just getting more experience, more knowledge.

But gardening is definitely extremely unpredictable.

And it's something that there's just no way to be a perfect gardener.

The main thing is just to have fun while doing it.

I garden because, it's the giving part.

Getting to see the joy and just genuine appreciation from these people in need and the people that we give the produce to just makes me feel amazing.

I don't really have any specific plans for the future, but I'd say definitely a dream for my gardens would be to be able to go and expand not only outside of Austin, but even out of Texas and even international.

But I also want to help Katie's Krops in their goal to reach their one million pounds of produce milestone throughout all their growers.

Katie's Krops is extremely close to hitting that goal.

We are currently just a few thousand away, and I want to be able to help them hit that goal.

I'd say one of the biggest lessons that I've learned, and I say this a lot, is even the smallest amount of help can actually be a huge difference to somebody who's really needing it.

Always just remember the littlest things count.

One plant, one vegetable can make the biggest difference.

(gentle music) - Former Flora and Fauna Manager at Lake Austin Spa Resort Molly Pikarsky has made several appearances on CTG over the years.

Here's a clip from 2020 when she brought in the big guns for a Backyard Basics segment in season 26.

(bright music) - With me today is my budding farm to table chef and horticulturist Max.

Budding.

Get it?

- That was a total mom joke.

- Today we're going to talk about some of those wonderful herbs that keep growing through the winter months.

Max is going to demonstrate how to make a crazy flavorful herb and garlic toast using these fresh herbs.

In the beautiful landscape of Lake Austin Spa Resort, we have all of these either in our culinary gardens, the landscape, or both.

I love using edibles in the landscape, especially ones that provide nice evergreen anchor plants.

I feel it is so important in a sustainable landscape to use as many multipurpose plants as possible, and these fit the bill.

They are outstanding performers in the garden, the landscape beds, and in the kitchen.

- For the herbed garlic bread, we are going to use rosemary, oregano, and thyme.

We are starting with a cracked pepper sourdough, and we'll use fresh garlic and butter too.

- I harvested these herbs yesterday, so we are using them fresh, but you can certainly use dried herbs if you wish.

- [Max] First, we have rosemary.

- Rosemary is a tough evergreen shrub.

I find it to be quite drought and deer resistant, which is perfect for Central Texas.

When harvesting, I snip off the tips that are still tender right above where the stems start to turn woody.

We will chop these finely.

- [Max] Next up, oregano.

- I love working with oregano in the landscape.

It has a sprawling, irregular spreading habit that I think looks wonderful in many different applications, containers to borders.

Some varieties have a really showy bloom too.

This is hot and spicy oregano, my favorite.

Hot and spicy.

We will chop these finely and into the mix it will go.

- [Max] Our next herb is thyme.

- My favorite place to grow thyme is in containers.

While it is certainly suited for the flower beds or garden, I just prefer it in containers.

I love the way it adds fine texture and spills over the edges.

The delicate blooms of thyme are particularly pretty.

I love all the varieties: thymus minus, the diminutive tiny thyme that can be, that can handle a little light foot traffic, lemon thyme, orange thyme, wooly thyme.

All of them are tough as nails and a great addition to the landscape.

With thyme, I usually don't chop it.

I simply strip the leaves from the stems and add it to the mix.

- All of these herbs like to stay a little on the dry side, and we use organic fertilizer with microbiology to keep them healthy.

And now for the herb garlic toast.

- Max made these the other night and blew us all away.

We drizzled a little of his famous balsamic reduction on it and it was pretty spectacular.

- First, preheat your oven to 400, then place your cracked pepper sourdough on the cookie sheet like this.

- I assist by finely chopping several cloves of garlic.

Be a rebel.

Use a little or a lot.

Up to you.

Melt your butter too, and then dig out the handy brush from the drawer and brush on the butter.

- [Max] Brush each slice of bread... - [Molly] Heavily.

- [Max] ...with butter, then add the garlic.

I make sure to spread it evenly all over the bread.

- [Molly] And this is where the magic happens.

- Make sure your herbs are mixed up.

Then sprinkle them on the bread.

Heavy or light.

It's up to you.

- [Molly] How rebellious of you, Max.

- I like to drizzle a little more butter.

Two reasons: one, it helps the herbs stick, and two, more butter.

Next, place the tray in the oven for about five minutes.

It may take a minute or two longer depending on your oven and how crunchy you want your bread.

- For the recipes and tips on growing these herbs, please check out my blog.

This has been Molly, your rebel horticulturist... - And Max.

...reminding you to know the rules so you can break them well.

- Maybe not all of them, mom.

- Bye.

- Bye.

- These days, Molly is happy to provide holistic tree care as an arborist with Good Guys Tree Service.

And you'll be happy to hear that her son Max, is currently enrolled in culinary classes.

Back in 2024, Central Texas Gardener was thrilled to be schooled on why prairie restoration matters so much to our future by a very special guest, my son, Adler Asher.

(bright music) - I'm happy to speak to everyone today about grasslands and prairies.

Prairies used to cover three quarters of Texas and a million more acres all over the world.

But sadly, less than 1% remain in Texas.

Grasslands are endangered because settlers chose to plant crops over the prairie land because there were no trees.

Settlers also stopped two important events that are key to healthy prairies.

They stopped wildfires because they thought it looked bad.

Did you know that historically every 10 years, 14 million acres would burn naturally, helping shape our grasslands.

The fires cleared out dead plants and put nutrients back into the soil.

The other event they stopped was the migration of bison, whose herds used to be in the number of millions.

The buffalo would travel around the USA eating plants and disturbing the soil, allowing different plants to thrive.

Both fire and bison also helped prevent trees from growing and shading out sun-loving grasses and flowers.

In my model, I have an example of a prairie.

There were many other animals that called prairie home other than bison.

I chose to focus on the small black-tailed prairie dog and prairie chicken because even small species can have a big impact.

Prairie dogs are keystone species that support 150 other animal species through their creation of tunnels in the earth.

These tunnels allow water to move deep in the earth and keep the soil temperature cool by allowing air to pass through.

The prairie dog is a herbivore who ate prairie plants, but also prevented small trees from taking over the prairie.

Prairie dogs are cute, but also get eaten by predators such as the ferruginous hawk and the endangered black-footed ferret, which you can see in my model.

As shown, the endangered prairie chicken that requires vast space to thrive.

The prairie soil also are home to a universe of microbes that form beneficial relationships with grasses and flowers.

These plants couldn't grow if the microbes didn't attach their roots and allow the plants to thrive.

The microbes are also decomposers that recycle nutrients from dead plants.

So why are prairies important to us?

Climate change is a serious threat to the world and is driven by too much CO2 in the atmosphere.

Prairies are great at locking in soil organic carbon.

We can use many prairie plants in our yards and landscape because their roots run very deep and conserve water.

Plus they are important to food and all our awesome pollinators.

Saving prairies can help save us.

- Be sure to check out centraltexasgardener.org for tips, resources, and to watch online.

Until next time, adopt the pace of nature.

- Her secret is patience.

(bright music) - [Presenter] Central Texas Gardener's 30th season is made possible by Lisa and Desi Rhoden, supporting a love of gardening and nature for all communities.

- [Presenter 2] Want to know what happens to your recycled plastic?

Since 2004, HEB has turned 58 million pounds of recycled plastic into things like composite decking and Field & Future by HEB trash bags.

You can learn more at ourtexasourfuture.com.

(bright music)