"It's a lot of work," said Tatiana Lambert.
But 17-year-old Tatiana Lambert is enjoying growing and eating healthy foods.
"I wasn't really good at eating before. Like I would like not really like homemade meals. I didn't like cooking much and so I ate a lot of fast food, Chinese things like that," Lambert said.
"Besides growing vegetables here we're trying to grow teenagers and we want to give them lots of opportunities to develop social skills, job skills that will help them out in school," said David Sapphire, from the Learn it, Grow it, Eat it program.
And they're getting paid, ten dollars an hour, 24 hours a week. Once a week they cook what they've grown.
"We cook healthy things. We grow and we cook it. I've been eating it, it's good. We do everything in our garden. We learn too much," said 18-year old, Al Hassan Yaya.
And today, the cooking is being done for them, but by chefs from the famed Gotham Bar and Grill. The restaurant values local produce and this gardening program. The restaurant donates to it as well. This meal is just a nice treat.
"We thought it would be fun to kinda say okay, you guys worked all summer, let us cook you a little lunch with what you've grown and do maybe what a chef would do with the food," said Bret Csencsitz, General Manager of Gotham Bar and Grill.
A gourmet lunch, much of it grown here, cooked here and now eaten here as well.
"At least what we're doing is actually helping somebody. Its helping us, a lot," Lambert said.
For more information visit: http://www.grownyc.org/ee/lge
