Planting Seeds at Painted Sky Farms

It is hard to imagine a world in which parents don’t conspire to get their children to eat vegetables. In fact, with the advent of social media, parents can access infinite ways to mask a vegetable. Whether sneaking carrots into a recipe, dressing peppers up with dips, or blending spinach into juice, these tricks have been tried countless times with mixed results. But Summer Almand, owner of Painted Sky Farms, has a creative method that is the exact opposite of a long con. Almand teaches kids to grow their own vegetables and use them in meals and snacks.

The road to this outdoor gardening classroom began, ironically, in Almand’s indoor classroom, although the road was a bit circuitous. Years ago, as an elementary teacher, Almand found herself wanting an education for her own children that came without the restrictions of a traditional school day and the confines of its bell schedules. Without looking back, she and her husband decided to homeschool their kids and start a new adventure. They decided to buy a business so their youngsters could learn how to run one as part of their overarching homeschool curriculum, and they chose a farm with a fully operational 12-stall horse boarding facility.

Their adventure began on Christmas Day 2017, when, after watching the sunrise, they drove to their new farm. On the way Almand asked her daughter, Skyler, who was 12 at the time, how she would describe the sky after a sunrise. Skyler answered, “I don’t know, but it’s like someone painted the sky.” With that observation came a new name: “Painted Sky Farms.”

Skyler naming the farm was fitting, as she was the only one who instantly felt right at home. An avid horse lover and barrel racer, Skyler knew exactly what to do while the rest of the family raced to learn. Almand recalls, “Horses were not my passion. On the first day, I put the equipment on the horse upside down! But we convinced the boarders that we would learn and we would work until the job was done, and we convinced them to trust us.” Now, almost 10 years later, the farm has evolved to include a flower farm, natural beauty products, and a gardening club/classroom for homeschooled students.

While there is a broad range of offerings, all of the items and opportunities are connected and have grown organically to complement one another. The first new offering came when Almand asked herself, “Horses light Skyler up, but what lights me up?” The answer was gardening vegetables. While tackling gardening, she also threw a pack of flower seeds into a raised bed and began her obsession with flowers.

Some flowers, like marigolds, deterred pests in her vegetable garden, while flowers such as yarrow and calendula led to the production of natural beauty products including lip balms and salves. As more and more flowers bloomed, Painted Sky began to offer a “u-pick” system that allows patrons to pick their own flowers for bouquets. With her crops growing exponentially and her relationship with the land deepening, Almand knew it was time to expand again.

She says, “I looked around and thought, ‘I wish there would have been this opportunity when I was young.’ I wanted to share this beautiful property.” Since there were several homeschooled children aged 7 to 12 taking riding lessons from her daughter, it was only natural to ask them to join her in gardening vegetables and flowers. The group evolved into two groups of students attending twice-weekly gardening sessions wherein they sow their own shared rows of vegetables. 

The kids love digging in the dirt, and they also enjoy the lessons taught in the big red barn at the center of the property. A natural teacher, Almand mixes fun into all of the education with pop-up videos, activities, and plenty of hands-on learning. The curriculum is endless, with the sessions focusing on a wide range of topics, from pollinators to pests to fertilizing with horse manure.

According to two of the gardening group’s members, Evie and Zander Sarbak, they learn a lot about how to raise their plants. Both are incredibly proud of their garden rows filled with vegetables and herbs, including arugula, kale, tomatoes, cucumbers, collard greens, rosemary, lettuce, and bell peppers. “It’s just so much fun,” Zander says; “the farm is my second-favorite place in the whole world because my first favorite is home.” In fact, says their mom, Katie, “They garden here at the farm and they also have a thriving garden at home because of what they learn here. They actually want to do it.”

Their joy in gardening is evident in the verbs used by Evie, Zander’s big sister, as she discusses a typical day at the farm. “We get to weed and we get to plant,” she says. “Even weeding is fun because we get to feed the weeds to the chickens.” As she speaks, several chickens come to the fence to ask for their next salad, which the children oblige.

While the chickens enjoy their salad, the reviews are mixed when it comes to how much the children enjoy the vegetables of their labor. While Zander is a fan of the arugula salad they have made, Evie, when asked if she eats the healthful offerings, laughs and says she just really “loves the farm.” Whether or not they enjoy the taste, the children’s excitement is evident when they share fun facts about why you need to separate cucumbers and tomatoes and use fish fertilizer in the greenhouse.

While Painted Sky’s gardens offer children hands-on learning in a nontraditional setting, it is part of a movement that also motivates traditional schools to offer chances for kids to learn about wholesome eating choices. Programs such as the nonprofit Spoons Across America strive to enhance healthful eating by educating students, teachers, and families across the United States. According to spoonsacrossamerica.org, the organization is dedicated to advancing food literacy for all children, with a focus on low-income communities. 

Established in New York over 20 years ago, Spoons Across America focuses on connecting children to local farmers and teaching them to cook healthful recipes. The organization also recently launched virtual programs wherein students can use what they learn in their own homes. Spoons Across America is active across Florida, and communities as close as Palm Beach host fundraisers to support this cause.

Spoons Across America focuses on students who are roughly aged 6 to 11, much like the age range of Almand’s students at Painted Sky. Focusing on young children to spread joy about growing healthful foods is genius, because their excitement is purely infectious. If children can influence their older siblings, parents, and friends to grow or eat wholesome alternatives, the potential is endless. Ultimately, the hope is that even if people still secretly prefer candy over carrots, they will at least learn to make room for both.