If you take a look outside, it certainly doesn't look like the time to begin harvesting crops. But step inside Vestal High School, and you'll find students doing just that.

It's all thanks to this brand-new grow tower, which uses a balance of cool and warm lights to simulate the sun.

"It is the future of growing because the way the plant is changing we're going to need to keep on using towers like these and advancing," said Tabitha Briggs, Vestal Garden Club President.

The tower was donated in October, and the school's garden club quickly planted its first seeds.

Fast forward to today, and these bins are full of fresh greens ready to be consumed.

 

 

"Even when I was younger, we still do gardens in the ground, but even the fact that it's advanced to a big tower that rains on a timer, that's pretty neat," said Briggs.

All of the greens that were grown will then be transferred to the school lunchroom to be used for salads.

"Planting the seeds to actually watching them germinate to sort of seeing them grow here has been engaging them to the point where now they know that they can actually take control of their nutrition," said Kyle Rizzo, Vestal High School Science Teacher.

Teachers hope projects like will encourage their students to consider entering the agriculture field, which they say is ever-changing.

"New York state and New York state history has always been one of the larger agricultural areas of the country and we can probably get back to that by simply have the kids understand that growing the food is a possibility," said Rizzo.

Each tower can produce up to three days of high school lunches.