This is the third story in a series about Edward Little High School teacher Kim Finnerty’s agriculture class. The first story was published Sept. 5. The second story was published Nov. 22.

AUBURN — What does a farmer like Elmer Whiting — a local icon — do after he retires?

He volunteers in Kim Finnerty’s Edward Little High School class where students are getting their hands dirty planting and learning chemistry through agriculture.

Outside early Monday, winter stubbornly refused to relent to spring. The ground was covered with ice and slush from newly fallen sleet.

Inside the school’s new greenhouse, plants sprouted in humid, tropical air so warm — 80-plus degrees — students wore summer tops.

Students started planting seeds in the commercial-sized greenhouse in February. On Monday many plants needed bigger pots.

Whiting watched as students transplanted tomatoes, lettuce, chard and marigold seedlings.

“I’m trying to give them some guidance,” Whiting, 76, said. “They’ve got to plant them the right depth. They’ve got to handle them gently.”

High school junior Jeff Clark was doing just that. He carefully separated two entangled Big Boy tomato seedlings, just a few inches tall, then planted them in larger containers.

“You have to pay attention,” Clark said. “There’s a lot of things that if you do it wrong, the seeds won’t grow.”

When transferring a small plant, “you need to make a hole all the way to the bottom of the pot because you need room for the roots to expand,” Clark said. “If the dirt is too tight, it won’t let the roots grow.”

Before the class started in September “a lot of these kids have never seen a seed. They’ve never seen a little plant,” Whiting said. “They’ve learned quite a bit in the little time they’ve been here.”

Whiting grew vegetables at the family-run farm for 70 years, starting from the time he was a boy helping his parents in the fields. Before the farm closed last May, Whiting grew 60 acres of vegetables. Today the farm is for sale.

He misses farming, Whiting said. But it warms his heart to watch students take an interest in what he spent his life doing. “I can pass on a little that I know.”

Finnerty said Whiting comes to just about every class and offers valuable help.

“He taught us how to prepare the (seedling) trays, what seeds need to be heavily covered versus thinly covered, what plants don’t have to be covered. He’s amazing. He tells me what to do, and I do it.”

Last year Finnerty learned she won a $5,000 Maine Department of Agriculture grant to teach chemistry through agriculture and grew the pilot program from scratch.

Different organizations and individuals have gotten involved, offering donations, helping to build the greenhouse and volunteering to teach.

Others teaching with Finnerty, Whiting and the Auburn Land Lab’s Jim Chandler on Monday were Brian Lenberg of AmeriCorps Vista, Ryan LeShane of the University of Maine Extension of Bryant Pond and Nick Geer of St. Mary’s Nutrition Center.

As part of the program, high school ag students will do some teaching,  volunteering and donating of their own.

They are helping Park Street Elementary students plant a school garden, solicit votes for an online “Seeds of Change” grant to expand the program and sell seedlings to the public at an upcoming Mother’s Day sale.

Much of the fruits and vegetables they grow will go to the school lunch program.

bwashuk@sunjournal.com