Useful Plants Nursery, based in Black Mountain, will help students and teachers at Old Fort Elementary plant edible gardens on Friday, Nov. 6. They'll plant figs, raspberries, juneberries, blueberries, muscadine grapes and bush cherries.

"There’s a great need now for children — everyone, really — to become informed about and aware of the connection between their natural environment and the sources and quality of their food and water, and this is a really direct way to make that connection,” says Marie Reilly, director of the nursery’s school-garden planting program.