Vine Middle Magnet

Est. 2023
Garden Liaison: Hannah Florence
Spaces Supported: Vegetable Garden, Native Landscaping
Student Engagement: Daytime Extracurricular Enrichment, Afterschool Garden Club

Vine Middle Magnet was one of the first sites that requested support from the YGEP. What started as a student-led native landscape design with a few vegetable plants scattered throughout has now evolved into a full-fledged vegetable garden and multiple student-designed native landscapes installed in the Spring of 2025. The YGEP leads weekly daytime extracurricular enrichment for students as well as a weekly Garden Club after school. During both daytime engagements and afterschool, students learn the process of vegetable production from seed to harvest, planting seeds and starts and maintaining them for quality vegetable production and plant health. Students harvest from their garden and take home the vegetables they produce, often reporting back with what they made in their own kitchens. The YGEP will be concluding an Outdoor Classroom project in the Spring of 2026 in collaboration with Keep Knoxville Beautiful, steered by teacher feedback and student input. The YGEP aims to have a myriad of spaces at Vine Middle that students can connect with, learn from, and see their choices and hard work reflected in the beauty of their school’s landscape.