Spend time with Joe Matteson's horticulture class and you will soon discover that the Pojoaque Valley High School students also are scientists, eco-saviors and capitalist entrepreneurs.

Orlando Giron, 18, was constructing a 4- by-8-foot raised box that will eventually contain tomatoes and other plants seeded and initially grown in in small boxes. Fellow horticulture students will help with the transplanting.

"We are making these boards because there is not enough nutrients in the this soil to support these plants," Giron said. "We are mixing (enriched soil) so the plants have a better chance of getting nutrients as they grow."

Giron and the other 20 students in Matteson's horticulture class — where it seems the dirtier you get, the better your grade — are growing and will harvest a variety of herbs and vegetables. The plants are grown in a contained greenhouse attached to the classroom, an outside hoop structure and the raised plant boxes kept outside to better absorb the life-giving sunshine.

"The direct sunlight is best for most plants, but not others," Giron said.

Under the tutelage of Matteson and fellow science teacher Fran Diaz, the students are responsible for choosing the seeds, planting them, ensuring the chemical balance of the soil — or water for hydroponics plantings — then as the plants grow, transplanting them to larger pots or the raised beds.

Matteson and the students will tend to the crops during the summer, and after harvest sell them at local farmers markets and donate some to charities.

"We are working with the San Ildefonso Pueblo to arrange donations of produce" to some of their more needy residents, Matteson said.

To be sure, none of this came about in one or two years.

"This is an idea I have been working on for about six years," Matteson said. Money was rounded up from various sources, including the education foundation at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the New Mexico Community Foundation, the Pojoaque Valley Fund, the school district, PNM, and the largest grant — $50,000 — from the New Mexico Education Department.

There are a lot of grants out there, Matteson said. "You just have to do the research and legwork to find them."

One of the students' most recent projects — this in marketing — is what the class calls a "drip-irrigation system in a bag."

Matteson and his students find the necessary tubing, hoses and related hardware at local stores, package the partially assembled units in a burlap bag and attempt to sell them to the public as a convenient, inexpensive and water-efficient way of continuing to grow home vegetable or flower gardens despite tough economic times.

With a drip system, water can be delivered to individual plants at a reduced water pressure from the city's water line. Pressure is cut from 50 or 60 pounds per square inch to about 25 psi.

Matteson said that under a drip system 90 percent of the water goes to the plants, rather than being wasted as runoff, the cost is minimal, water is conserved and weeding is reduced because the water goes only to where the gardener directs it. "We are not growing and watering weeds," Matteson said.

Angela Lopez, a 16-year-old sophomore, was in the greenhouse transplanting jalapeño plants. "They were getting too big for their little boxes," Lopez said.

She said she enjoys the hands-on aspects of Matteson's class, and getting her hands dirty in the soil. "It's really relaxing compared to the other classes."

Adriana Carbajal, a 17-year-old senior, said she wasn't particularly interested in becoming a horticuluralist, but the class has taught her much about gardening and "it's fun."

Giron was finishing up his drilling. "I like working with my hands," he said, "and Mr. Matteson is the best teacher in the world. You know, it's nice to be (outside) instead of in a classroom doing book work.

The drip system in a bag sells for $135. To arrange to get an irrigation kit or for more information, e-mail Matteson at Thebiologyguy@la-tierra.com Proceeds will go for more class projects.

Contact Dennis Carroll at
dcarroll@sfnewmexican.com.