| This week we had some excitement at our house. Or, more specifically, in our worm bin. A week or so ago I dumped a big ol' bag of oat bran into the worm bin. It had been on the shelf in my apartment for probably 3 years so I figured it was best to let the worms have it. Then, two days ago, I looked in and found a bumper crop of fungi growing in there! Hooray! Plus, the bin was getting warm. I guess the bacteria are getting to some of our leftovers before the worms do. The worms have been reproducing as fast as their little wormy reproductive systems allow, but they still haven't been able to keep up with the volume of kitchen scraps and junk mail we throw at them. Anyway, when I saw the fungi, I couldn't wait to show the kids.
Wednesday was our first day with the girls since Christmas. They are overstimulated with new presents and toys, so it's a little hard to make a case for checking out the worm bin. Still, I got our 7 year old to go into the garage to check it out with me. There was a new surprise in there too. Some of the seeds tossed in there had sprouted! No idea what type of plant is growing in there. Squash, perhaps? So we checked out the sprouting plants together, then held our hands over the bin to feel the warmth rising from it, and took a look at the fungi (which kind of resembles cotton balls or shaving cream or something). Very cool!
The next surprise came from our carrots. They had sprouted! It was drizzly and cold out so one kid only saw the carrots from the window (and you can't really see them that way at all). The other saw them as a picture on my computer. Instead of going outside to plant the broccoli and cauliflower seeds that "Santa" left for the kids in their stockings, we stayed inside and made birdfeeders with pinecones, peanut butter, and sunflower seeds. The peanut butter I got was hard to spread (it was the peanuts-only stuff where the oil separates out) but it did the trick well enough and we hung our birdfeeders outside where the dog hopefully cannot reach them. The girls were very disappointed that the birds did not come and eat the seeds immediately but I told them that we need the birds to find them first.
Then there were the books on gardening I got for the kids... I wrote about most of them here, but I also got them a new one called "No Eat Not Food." This book is AWESOME! Unfortunately, it's way too hard for our youngest (age 3), which means that I have to cajole our older daughter into reading it. Or letting me read it to her so we can discuss it. While she was making a house for my cat out of a craft kit I gave her as a gift and a cardboard box, I asked if I could read her the first chapter and she agreed. In it an alien lands in the backyard of two kids and demands "Take me to your feeder." Afraid that he will eat them, the kids give him food. They try potato chips, a candy bar, even dog food, but the alien keeps proclaiming "No Eat Not Food!" So then the follow him to the grocery store where he continues to search for food. That's as far as we got before her attention span gave out. Ultimately the kids end up on an organic farm, discovering how delicious vegetables and fruits can be when they are grown properly. The book is GREAT from my perspective... but what matters is what the kids think of it.
Another book I got the girls on gardening... or actually, Santa got them... is called The Curious Garden. It's about a little boy who lives in a city where there is no greenery and nobody goes outside. He loves to go outside and one day he finds a few plants and decides they need a gardener. The garden grows and grows, and pretty soon it's not just new plants that sprout up but new gardeners too. In the end, the whole city is happy and covered in lush green plants. Both girls were initially interested because the book came from Santa but the 3 year old especially was NOT into it.
We had MUCH better luck with In the Garden, a very simple book my boyfriend and I picked up on a whim. Our 3 year old LOVES this book. Every page says "The [blank] grows on the [blank]. I pick it and eat it!" I read the first sentence ("The tomato grows on the vine.") and then I ask her, "What do we do with it?" She loves to yell "Pick it and eat it!" The next day, in our garden, while we watered our carrots, she told me she wanted to pick them and eat them after they grew. Yay! She gets it!
Thursday went a little better in terms of actual gardening. I suggested we feed some underwear to the worms (it's cotton... a plant!) so we all set to work cutting up an old pair that belonged to a former room mate. When we gave it to the worms, the little one dug right in with her hands. I showed her the fungi and then we discovered something new: worm eggs! Here's a pic I found online to confirm what they were:
I came inside to show them to the older daughter, who understands the concept a bit better. The little one, upon hearing that we had worm eggs, asked if she could eat them. I told her we only eat chicken eggs, not worm eggs. But now that I know what worm eggs look like - WOW! We have TONS of them. Our worms are very fertile.
Next up, we went outside to weed the carrots. The older daughter lost interest after about 2 minutes, and the younger daughter just wanted to use her new toy garden shovel that she got for Christmas. I took her over to the area I set aside for planting broccoli and cauliflower and let her go to work there with her shovel. Some weeds were popping up so she was actually doing some good work to get rid of them. Then we got her broccoli seeds and I helped her plant a few. She did about 10 or so and lost interest. I planted the rest. I asked the older girl if she wanted to plant her cauliflower but she said no, she'd do it later. I offered to do it for her but she said no, she wanted to, just not now. Well, that's promising.
Last, I set to work making a mulch out of some dead leaves. We had recently pruned a bunch of branches off of a tree, so I started stripping the branches of leaves and putting the leaves into a spare bin. The little one came out to help but once she saw what I was doing, she wanted use her new toy watering can to water the carrots instead. Normally I don't water anything until dusk because the water all evaporates here, but that went in our favor just this once. She never tired of watering the same old patch of carrots, and a few minutes after watering a spot, it would look dry again. Then she'd add more water. It probably wasn't the best use of water but it kept her busy and we talked about how plants drink water and eat sunshine while she did it.
Back inside, I made a notebook where I recorded the dates we planted each plant and any other events (germination, rain, weeding, etc). I tried to interest our older daughter but she just wasn't that into it for now. I want to eventually make a graph we can put on the wall showing how many days it took for each different plant to germinate. All I've got so far are the carrots, which took 13 days. But the sugarsnap peas should be up any day now (and maybe they are already and I just don't know what they look like).
This is exciting! I hope the kids are having as much fun as I am.
Previous diaries about our garden:
Part 1: Preparing the soil and planting the carrot seeds
Part 2: Preparing the soil for peas and cruciferous veggies
Part 3: Enter the Pests
Part 4: The Carrots Sprouted! |
