Ten-year-old Joseph of Sharon, Massachusetts, may be entering his second year as a Katie’s Krops gardener in 2025, but he’s far from a beginner. His gardening journey began in 2020 when he started a home garden using seeds saved from grocery store produce.
In 2021, he expanded his knowledge by volunteering at The Farm at Moose Hill, a CSA farm located on the grounds of the Audubon Society’s Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary. There, he gained hands-on experience in organic farming and picked up valuable gardening tips—including the fact that while all parts of the pokeweed plant are toxic, the young shoots can be eaten if boiled multiple times.
Joseph, a homeschooled fifth grader, has a deep passion for gardening and enhances his knowledge by watching educational videos. His mother, Ellie, admits she doesn’t have much gardening experience herself but fully supports her son’s interests. She discovered Katie’s Krops while researching programs for young gardeners and has encouraged Joseph to track his harvest totals in a spreadsheet.
In 2024, Joseph cultivated four raised beds, growing a variety of crops, including tomatoes, green beans, purple beans, eggplant, spinach, and bok choy. His most successful crop was green beans, and he harvested about 10 pounds of fresh produce, which he donated to the Community Food Pantry at First Congregational Church in Sharon.
Looking ahead to 2025, Joseph hopes to expand his garden and increase his food production. He plans to add two more raised beds, experiment with an in-ground garden, and grow new crops such as zucchini while improving yields on crops that didn’t thrive last season. Additionally, he intends to start growing flowers to provide fresh bouquets for the food pantry. Since Sharon is in growing zone 6, Joseph begins his seeds indoors and transplants them outside in early May.
As with all our gardeners, we wish Joseph the best of luck in 2025 and commend his dedication to helping those in need through his passion for gardening.
When people think of gardens, most picture in-ground plots or raised beds. However, not everyone has that option—including seven-year-old Olivier Perez of North Charleston, South Carolina. He and his parents live in an apartment with a balcony, but after volunteering at the Katie’s Krops flagship garden in nearby Summerville and attending children’s classes there, he knew he wanted to be one of our gardeners and grow food at home to donate.
Fortunately, his parents were prepared for this. During the pandemic, they decided to become more self-sufficient and purchased three hydroponic tower gardens to grow some of their own food. Not only did this give them greater food security, but it also inspired four-year-old Olivier to eat more vegetables, especially cucumbers.
After losing her job right before the pandemic, Patrycja became a stay-at-home mom and now homeschools Olivier, teaching him how to grow and care for their gardens. He enjoys organizing and planting seeds—two of his favorite tasks—and takes part in harvesting and donating most of their produce to the Impact Center at Cathedral Church. Their donations supplement grocery store contributions and are distributed twice a week to those in need, along with items such as clothing and furniture.
With two towers on their balcony during the nearly year-round growing season and another one indoors under grow lights, Olivier is able to grow a wide variety of food, including cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, basil, collards, lettuce, bok choy, Swiss chard, and other greens. In addition to harvesting when the produce is mature, Olivier ensures there is enough water and mineral solution in the reservoir for when the automatic timer activates the pump to water and nourish the plants.
Tower gardens are not without challenges, though. They couldn’t prevent bugs from getting to the zucchini or protect the eggplant when it was planted too late and exposed to the cold. To help with pest control, they spray neem oil and other essential oils on the plants to prevent further infestations.
Katie’s Krops is thrilled to have Olivier as one of our young growers—and our first tower garden grower!
Thanks to a dedicated team of educators, students at Beech Hill Elementary School in Summerville, South Carolina, have a unique learning opportunity through a school garden supported by Katie’s Krops, which is also based in Summerville.
When the garden was first established five years ago, sustainability was a challenge, even with guidance and funding from the Clemson Extension School and Community Gardening Program. However, the school persevered and connected with Lisa Turocy, Katie’s Krops Master Gardener and Board Member for Katie’s Krops. She proposed a potential partnership, recognizing that the needs of the BHES garden aligned perfectly with Katie’s Krops’ mission. With financial support and expert advice tailored to the area, the garden is now thriving.
Students of all grade levels have the opportunity to work and learn in the two gardens. The lower school garden introduces younger students to garden etiquette and safety, while the upper school garden, located between the third and fifth-grade classrooms, sees the most activity from those grades. Teachers integrate the garden into various subjects, providing real-life learning experiences. Third and fifth graders, for example, research plant growth challenges during literacy lessons, measure planting depth and spacing in math, and study flower structures in science. The garden also serves as an incentive for students to complete assignments and maintain positive behavior while fostering responsibility and environmental stewardship.
All students learn the importance of “eating the rainbow” and how different vegetables contribute to their nutritional needs. The school’s food service provider, Sodexo, and Ms. Haugh have hosted food tastings for all age groups, allowing students to try produce they may have never tasted before.
The school has also held several in-house farmers’ markets, where staff—including custodians and cafeteria workers—can enjoy the high-quality produce grown by students. Any surplus harvest is donated to Hearts for Summerville, a local organization suggested by school receptionist Ms. Kemble, who is actively involved with the group. Hearts for Summerville provides food, children’s books, furniture, rent assistance, and other essential resources to those in need, and the fresh garden produce helps support their mission.
Beyond nutrition and academics, the garden fosters a sense of independence and ownership among students. When they are younger, teachers guide them through planting and care, but as they grow older, students take the lead, applying years of knowledge to manage the garden themselves.
Like many school gardens, Beech Hill faces the challenge of summer maintenance, as the break lasts from early June to mid-August. Last summer, five teachers took turns caring for the sweet potatoes, each covering two weeks. The hope is to recruit students and their families to help this year—perhaps inspiring the children to become garden teachers at home.
Mikey Miceli, a 14 year old freshman in Jackson, New Jersey, may be a new Katie’s Krops grower in 2024 but he is most certainly not new to gardening. He’s been working the gardens alongside his parents and now 16 year old brother, Antonio, since he was 7. The family’s expansive gardens include an orchard with apple, peach, plum, pear and chestnut trees as well as raised beds in which they grow blueberries, raspberries, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, cantaloupes, peas, green beans, strawberries, radishes, and onions with plans to try growing endame and corn this year.
When his father found out about Katie’s Krops on Facebook, Mikey didn’t think he had a chance of being selected as a grower. However, he still applied and his enthusiasm and personality shined through in his application video. With all of the land and beds that they currently have, when asked what he specifically wanted to do with his Katie’s Krops funding grant, he had a ready answer – buy a greenhouse. The $400 provided enabled him to do exactly that and to our knowledge, he’s become the first Katie’s Krops gardener to have one. He’s already using the greenhouse to start the seeds for summer crops while simultaneously tending cold weather crops in the uncovered raised beds.
Mikey doesn’t rely on others for all his gardening money though. He raised and sold strawberry plants and used that money to buy seed heating pads for his seedlings.
Gardening and living inspiration doesn’t come from just his immediate family. During a trip to Italy two years ago, Mikey was in awe of his great-grandmother, who was raising and tending to her own livestock and garden to supply all her food needs. Back in New Jersey, his family is doing much the same. They have previously raised meat birds and have 14 laying hens to provide eggs. Mikey hunts for rabbits. They preserve produce for their own needs through a combination of freezing, dehydrating, vacuum sealing and canning while still growing enough to donate to “share the wealth” with those in need. To that end, the family has contacted a local church for assistance in making sure the produce is given to those that are truly in need.
With their experience in all phases of growing in zone 7A, from weeding, tending to the plants, laying down wood chips between beds to cut down on weeds, or consulting a master gardener recommended by Katie’s Krops to ensure that the woodpecker in the apple tree won’t hurt the tree or the apples (it won’t), the Micelis are a family that believes in growing and giving back. Katie’s Krops is proud to support them ansespecially Mikey in their efforts.
Every gardener faces adversity at some point, and 9-year-old Ezekiel and his seven-year-old brother Zachariah have probably encountered more than their share for their ages. It all started at their previous home in West Virginia, where they became Katie’s Krops Growers after their mom, Meg, read about the organization on Facebook. Their garden there did well until the bugs got to the green beans and peas. Still, they had a good harvest of other crops that they could donate to a senior home in the town of Rupert.
Before the 2023 growing season, they moved to Michigan and settled near Lansing to be near family. Unfortunately, their new home didn’t have a yard for growing. Hence, the family got creative and started a porch garden with tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeno, and other hot peppers and cilantro. Growing in containers was a new learning experience. Still, they were doing well, picking and sharing their crop in the community while expecting to harvest even more until August 24, when the tornado came. Yes, a TORNADO! In Michigan…
Mom Meg says that losing some roof shingles and a bit of siding from their rental home didn’t disturb her nearly as much as losing some of their plants and the fruit from others. They knew they wouldn’t have as much bounty to share, but the boys wanted to continue their efforts because Zachariah finds gardening fun. Ezekiel enjoys tasting vegetables straight from the garden. Meg became creative with what they did have and started stretching it by using the ripe produce in meals that they then shared in their neighborhood with those in need. She also pickled some of the jalapenos and distributed those for the community members to use this winter. That’s good because their 2023 gardening season is over, and they’ve even had their first snowfall.
Mom is one of many in the family that are creative, though. Ezekiel and Zachariah showed that same spirit in West Virginia when they wanted to eat a watermelon, and Mom was busy with something else. They knew they shouldn’t use the knife to cut it, so they threw it on a wall. Not surprisingly, it broke open, and they enjoyed a delicious treat. While we at Katie’s Krops don’t encourage throwing food around, especially watermelons, we applaud their spirit and ability to adapt to changing growing methods, climate, and circumstances beyond anyone’s control.
We look forward to sponsoring them in the coming years.
Some of the luckiest people are the ones who find something they are passionate about and are able to use that passion to support themselves and others. Jarred Shaw, a literacy coach at the River City Science Academy’s Middle-High School in Jacksonville, Florida, is one of those people. An educator for 23 years and previously a school principal in New Jersey, Jarred has always worked with students and local farmers on the gardens at every school where he was a staff member. Now he serves as the head of the school garden club at this Title 1 charter school.
The garden started when Jarred brought in produce to share from his home garden and a science teacher suggested turning a small, blighted space on the school property into a garden. In addition to soliciting support and donations, a student, Donte Camacho, and Jarred wrote a grant request to Katie’s Krops and we have supported them for the last two years.
The six raised and six in-ground beds provide produce year-round. Sweet potatoes, watermelon, cucumbers, broccoli, eggplant, snow peas, pole beans, collards, spinach, and other leafy greens are some of the vegetables that complement the fruit from 15 varieties of fruit trees including lemon, lime, fig grapefruit, and herbs such as basil, oregano and parsley. They also have a butterfly garden and grow milkweed, roses, and other flowers as pollinators.
The 150 pounds of food produced so far has all been distributed to the students in need as well as some school staff. One 75-year-old teacher said the produce he receives helps keep him alive. New raised beds are being built from wooden pallets so that even more can be grown and shared.
The garden club is still small, with 5 to 10 students participating at any given time. As a STEM school, there are many activities vying for the attention of the students. They still appreciate the garden, and science teachers like being able to use it for some of their lessons.
The garden is also supported by members of the community, including Jones and Hall Garden Center, the Florida Farm Bureau, Target, Southeastern Grocers, and Wild Ones, a group that promotes the use of native plants. In the summer, support for maintaining the garden comes from Jarred himself as well as school maintenance staff and volunteers. For his part, Jarred does not mind because, again, he has a passion for gardening and for providing healthy eating options to his students. Katie’s Krops shares those passions, and we are happy to support Jarred, the students, and the school garden.
Nine-year-old Jackson from Illinois enjoyed his first year as a Katie’s Krops Grower so much that he plans to grow again in 2024. He first heard about the organization from his mom while researching grants for her adult garden club.
It has yet to be a total success story; Jackson’s tomatoes, eggplants, and lettuce did great, but the peppers and beans were another story. Despite that, he donated 21 pounds of peaches from the family’s existing trees and 25 pounds of vegetables from his two raised beds to his neighbors and a local food pantry. He also learned about plant diseases and how the drought conditions in the Midwest affected his garden, requiring him to often water with a hose or from a bucket to keep his plants alive.
Jackson did not limit his efforts to just food. He also grew swamp milkweed to raise butterflies and was successful when three orange and black monarchs matured. He nicknamed them Milanos after the cookie container in which they
were raised.
With assistance from his mom and sometimes his sister, Jackson was able to help others, which he says is why he puts in the work to grow. We here at Katie’s Krops are happy to hear that and to help Jackson as he continues with his garden in the coming years.
We are thrilled to announce that Ari is the 203 Katie’s Krops Grower of the Year!
A lot has changed since we first profiled Ari Denson in October 2022. She’s now a year older, in the 4th grade, and sadly, one of her garden mentors, her great-grandmother, died in mid-2023.
Other wonderful things, such as the help she gets from her grandfather, have stayed the same. The gardens are still in his backyard but have expanded from one 20 square foot plot and some pots to 116 square feet when Grandpa replaced his deck and used the old wood to build three more 8×4 foot raised beds; even more, are planned for 2024. The garden output also changed from about 50 to over 225 pounds, including spring and summer crops of strawberries, edamame, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, red and green bell peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, and potatoes. The total will likely go up because she’s still growing in 2023 and currently has collards, kale, cabbage, and mustard greens to give to members of her community, especially those who are retired, to improve their diets. The total might have been higher if not for the plant-eating pests and if the heat, accompanied by a lack of rain while they were on vacation, hadn’t harmed some of the plants.
Ari is also encouraging others to garden. As a junior Girl Scout, she and some of her troop are working on a group project to earn their Bronze Award. They plan to have a separate garden plot at her grandparents’ home (that 6 acres they own are coming in handy!), and she works in the church garden started by the youth choir.
She still enjoys working in her gardens alongside Grandpa with help from her parents, grandma, and occasionally various cousins while learning about different beneficial and harmful bugs, experiencing the joy of giving, and just plain old having fun. We at Katie’s Krops are hopeful that she will continue growing for a long, long time.
Oh, one other thing that has stayed the same. Brother Jeffrey may be a year older, but he still hates the bugs.
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For Ariane “Ari” Denson, an 8-year-old third grader at Belvedere Elementary School in North Augusta, South Carolina, it all began with a squash seed. As part of a Sunday school lesson on the mustard seed in 2021, she and her classmates were given squash seeds to take home and grow. Katie’s Krops was mentioned during the lesson, and voila, a new gardener was born.
Ari applied to become a Katie’s Krops Grower, and she grew her first garden this year in her maternal grandparents’ backyard 15 minutes away in Aiken. Her first tutor in growing was grandma, but grandpa just couldn’t sit by and stepped in to help Ari grow over 50 pounds of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, pineapple, and herbs such as thyme, parsley, and sage this year. That total will likely go up since they have now started a fall garden with cabbage and collard greens. This productive haul was grown in just 20 square feet of raised bed gardens and some pots.
She has learned much from her grandparents, who have taught her how to grow plants from seeds and start composting for next year. Her great-grandmother is now 94 and bedridden but has also provided garden tips based on her experience, such as you should cut produce when picking it, not pulling it. In return, great grandma was rewarded with the first item harvested, a cucumber.
Ari has learned a lot this year, including that tomatoes don’t always thrive in the heat of a South Carolina summer, as well as which bugs are good and which are harmful. Another lesson learned, at this point, her 5-year-old brother, Jeffrey, will not be a good assistant in growing because he’s afraid of bugs. They make him cry before he runs away.
Ari really enjoys spending time with grandpa and getting closer to him as they help each other in the garden and with plans for next years, such as growing more in the sun rather than in partial shade. With 10 acres of land available, they should be able to find a suitable spot so they can grow even more. Together they distribute the food grown to the retired friends of the family so they can have healthier diets. She’s also found out that home-grown food tastes fresher and better than that bought at the store. We hope she continues to grow with Katie’s Krops for many years to come and that maybe Jeffrey can get over his bug phobia so he can help.
They may be young, but the brother and sister duo of Austin and Toni Carr, ages 8 and 10 respectively, are learning how to grow vegetables. Students at Amanda Clearcreek Elementary school in rural Ohio, they began their garden two years ago after their parents heard about Katie’s Krops on the P. Allen Smith gardening show on PBS. The siblings have grown 185 pounds of tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, green beans, and cucumbers in their 16 by 16 foot in-ground garden. The carrots they attempted did not produce, but the flowers they grow thrive, aiding in pollination while providing beauty.
After their Dad tills the garden in the spring, Toni and Austin are responsible for planting, weeding, and harvesting. They have had some adversity, especially this year when a wet spring was followed by a sweltering and dry summer, both of which hurt the garden. They also have to contend with pests, such as birds and rabbits, who are more than willing to eat the produce, which is one reason the carrots don’t do well.
The two chickens left from the original flock of 10 (blame the coyotes and stray cats) provide droppings for composting the garden, eggs for the family, and lessons on how to care for chickens to Toni and Austin.
Both enjoy working in the garden. Austin likes chasing mom with the worms, although he moves the toads from the garden rather than running with them. Toni enjoys bonding with her family and says gardening is a fun hobby where she gets to be active. Mom Ashley is happy to have a summer activity that gets the kids outside and off their tablets. The entire family is glad they can provide fresh produce to their neighbors and the food pantries in Amanda and nearby Stoutsville. Their goal is to eventually raise enough so that they can put a farm stand outside their home where everyone in their small community can stop by and take what they need for free.
While no one outside the family helps with the garden, Toni has talked to her friends about what they do and shares vegetables with them. She is hoping they will get their own Katie’s Krops gardens so they can also help the community while they learn about gardening.
