This article offers a description of an innovative youth program that embeds learning in a practical setting: a gardening program in which youth plant, harvest, and market their own produce. As an outgrowth of the gardening project, participants also interviewed scientists about their jobs in a way that underscored the practical use of science learning. These interviews are one example of the way in which community collaborations came to help define the gardening program. This article will also underline three components of the program that made it a valuable educational context for youth participants: (1) openness to youths' questions; (2) possibility for ownership; and (3) support of multiple forms of participation. The authors conclude with a summary of components of best practices as well as challenges the program faces. This article is essentially a synthesis of the observational and interview data Jrène Rahm collected in two individual qualitative case studies of the program in 1996 and 2001 (Rahm, 1998; Rahm & Downey, 2002) together with data drawn from informal conversations with youth and from our involvement in the program, with Jrène Rahm as researcher and Kenneth Grimes as program director.