Nearly every Thursday, I stop by a tiny farmer’s market that’s only open for two hours a week. Among the sellers with goods taken from the backs of cars and trucks and set up on makeshift stands is a jolly white-haired guy named Koby. Koby’s always got a few assorted bags of vegetables – sometimes carrots, sometimes cauliflower, beets or tomatoes. For just a few shekels, I can get several kilos of the sweetest peppers or tastiest potatoes I’ve eaten in a long time, and they’re all organic. Koby is always pushing his vegetables, even when he’s about to run out: “Try these carrots! They’re something special!”

The vegetables, it turns out, are grown by elementary schoolchildren.

Right in the Israeli city of Rehovot, across from the high-tech industrial park, is a miniature farm where classes from several schools come once a week to grow vegetables, get their hands dirty, and learn something about ecology and caring for the earth. A class of autistic children also gets lessons in farming there several times a week. The farm supports itself by selling the produce it grows, mainly to the kids’ families.

The Shlomit Farm for Agricultural and Environmental Education, as it’s called, had an open day last week, and I went to see who was growing all those delicious vegetables we’ve been eating. I was met by some third-graders who were bouncing up and down with excitement. They begged me to take the “tour” of the greenhouse, where a young lady named Subin explained how greenhouses let you grow peppers in winter. There was a charming demonstration low-water- use garden, complete with garden gnomes and plaster mushrooms and a big sign explaining the principles of water conservation. Another group of children was crowded around a cage with a baby goat.

Koby was there, selling plants. He looks like a lot of farmers I know – broad shoulders and big, capable hands– and I have imagined him in the pointy sun hat and sandals beloved of Israeli farmers of yore, hoeing weeds with the children. It turns out that Koby is a bonsai expert, and he volunteers at the farm to teach the kids his art. There is another greenhouse filled with the results of his students’ efforts, and they fantastic — enough to make any collector drool with envy.

But the place of pride goes to the rows of vegetables. The cabbages look like big, shiny bowling balls nestled in their outer leaves, the onions stand at attention in straight, green rows, and there’s not a weed in sight. It takes me less than an hour to walk through the whole place, photograph the cabbages, check out the stands and, of course, buy tomatoes, peppers and oranges before heading home. The next day is Thursday, and I ask Koby, who’s back at the farmer’s market, what’s these kids’ secret to growing such wonderful vegetables. His answer: “It’s a labor of love.” It’s not clear whether he’s talking about himself, or the kids.