To the members of an older generation, the phrase “school garden” may conjure up an image of a small patch of dirt where students planted a few radishes and green beans that may or may not have survived until harvest time. But many of today’s school gardens are much larger and more elaborate—small farms almost—where students learn about biology, ecology, agriculture, nutrition, and healthy eating habits.

One of the most famous of these gardens is the “Edible Schoolyard” at Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, launched in 1995 with the help of chef Alice Waters. Students there tend an acre of organically grown vegetables, fruit, and herbs. The school hopes to add a new cafeteria and dining commons where students will be able to eat what they have grown.

There are, however, many other equally worthy but less publicized school garden projects. Dozens of them are in California, which benefits from a climate conducive to gardening during the months that schools are in session, but they are springing up in other states as well. At Berkeley’s Willard Middle School, across town from the Edible Schoolyard, garden teacher Matt Tsang supervises 3,500 square feet of carrots, potatoes, greens, strawberries, sunflowers, and more, growing in neat rows of raised beds. The school started its garden in 1991 with a tiny patch of ground near the library, and gradually expanded, Tsang says. As the garden grew in size, so did the program. At first just a few students were involved; now every sixth grader takes gardening, together with cooking and nutrition classes.

Down south, meanwhile, at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Burbank, fifth graders tend cool weather crops like spinach, peas, lettuce, beans, and broccoli, with the help of garden coordinator Kristine Chinn. This school also has a small citrus orchard and two native plant gardens.

Tsang and Chinn both say that having children work outside provides them with a way to reach out. “Maybe a kid who’s not doing well in a mainstream class can come out here and be a success,” said Tsang, who has taught gardening at Willard since 1997.

Gardening also helps urban and suburban children get acquainted with the world outside their home environments. Many of Chinn’s students live in apartments with no back yards. Seeing the plants growing at school can be a revelation to them. “They don’t know where zucchini comes from, literally,” she said. “They don’t know corn grows on stalks.”

“I was surprised at their level of disconnect with where our food comes from,” Tsang added. Willard’s pupils use organic and biointensive growing methods, and the yields are surprisingly high. He pointed to a 25-by-4-foot raised bed which he expects to produce between 50 and 100 pounds of potatoes to be roasted and offered as snacks. One year, pupils harvested 17 pounds of lettuce a week from a single bed.

Nutrition plays a major part in both schools’ programs. Jefferson’s fifth graders have a harvest party every year where they can enjoy the fruits of their labor. They also get to take home some of the food they grow. The rest is donated to local homeless shelters.

At Willard, students are encouraged in cooking classes to sample unusual foodstuffs such as arugula and tomatoes of various hues—things that sixth graders might regard as weird or even gross. After planting them, watching them grow, and harvesting them, they are at least willing to give them a try. “By the end of the year, a kid who wouldn’t eat anything will go through the garden pulling off flowers and eating them,” Tsang says, laughing. Chinn’s students are quite taken with ears of baby corn that can be eaten whole—“the kind you have to spend lots of money for at a restaurant,” she noted.

Produce grown by the Willard students is used for snacks, offered regularly in the garden. The school cafeteria used to use some of the school-grown food for its salad bar, but that space was lost when the school was remodeled last year, Tsang said. Even so, “everything in the garden gets to the kids one way or another.”

Any way to get kids to eat more vegetables can only be a good thing. The number of obese children in the U.S. has doubled since the 1960s, and at least 15 percent of children between six and 19 are overweight. Not coincidentally, their diet has deteriorated as well. One recent survey estimated that up to half the calories consumed by young people come from junk food.

“School gardens are seen as an antidote to that,” said Travis Smith, program supervisor for the Berkeley School District’s Nutritional Network. “Just talking about the food pyramid doesn’t grab these kids.”

It would be nice if schools could begin by replacing standard cafeteria fare with veggies from their school gardens and other locally grown organic fare, some have suggested, but much would have to change for that to happen, especially in big districts that supply all schools from a single vendor. Smith points out that few schools could grow enough to meet the cafeteria’s needs on a daily basis. And it would cost more—school cafeterias are set up to serve meals that require little or no advance preparation. Working in a school garden isn’t going to instantly convert a sixth grader from fries to steamed parsley potatoes. But “We’re giving them choices,” said Tsang. “My hope is that we’ve planted a seed.”

BILL O'BRIEN is an independent reporter based in Oakland.