Introducing gardening to 4 and 5 year olds...

There is a benefit to the new school year starting towards the end of the summer gardening season.  Although I thought that the season would end sooner, concerned with Atlanta's frost date average being Oct. 15th, I have learned that fall veggies are hardier and require cooler temps to 'germinate,' or sprout from seed.  Therefore, many in our zone plant seeds indoors during the summer and transplant outside when the temps cool down, as we don't have a very long fall growing season.  The other option, which I have found to be more common, is to buy transplants and plant when the weather cools.  This is also a better option as some fall veggie seedlings/sprouts are less tolerant of transplanting.

ANYWAY...back to the BENEFIT, lol.  Because the summer veggies were winding down, and some gone due to those evil squash vine borers, the pre-k crowd was able to explore more freely.  I wasn't AS concerned about feet stepping on vines, kids playing in the dirt, or causing damage to young, vulnerable plants.

Green beans are a familiar veg to kids, because our green beans have been in all summer, they are well established, and for some reason producing better now than ever.  They provide many opportunities for little hands to pick with ease, can be eaten raw (less work for me!), and are about ready to be removed.

My hard workers, picking green beans.

 The corn had also been harvested during the second week of school, and the kids really enjoyed sneaking and hiding among the tall corn stalks.
Sadly, we did lose our one watermelon to an overly zealous harvester, picked way too early.  We used this as  a lesson by cutting it open.  The class was able to look inside and see that there was very little red inside, not what we want to see when eating a slice of watermelon.  We have also lost a couple tomatoes, as they were confused with green apples!  It's frustrating, but hard to get too upset, as they are soooo excited to show me what they picked from the garden!  I say this now, but if one comes running up to me with an almost ripe cantaloupe that I have been nursing along...well...it may not be so pretty...hehe.
Our last harvest of cucumbers provided us a 'cooking'  experience, as we made another batch of pickles.  Along pre-k standards, this provided kids with exposure to components of a recipe, measuring (math), taking turns/teamwork (social/emotional,) and vocabulary.

Harvesting the corn was also great fun for the kids, as they were free to shuck away!  More motor skill development, and an opportunity to feel new textures, and be a part of the preparation process.  This activity hadn't even occurred to me till we were picking the corn, for some reason.  It kept them independently occupied for a good period of time!  Always a plus in Pre-K!  :)

Fall planning is now underway.  The task feels a bit overwhelming at the moment.  Tearing out the old will be fun, but prepping the soil, and planting is another story.  At this age, the lure of swings and tricycles nearby can easily deter their attention, and smaller groups are necessary.  Due to economy and budgeting, each pre-k has 2 additional students.  It may not sound like much, but boy, do we feel it!  Up until now, I have simply invited kids to explore and harvest during our regular outside time.  However, real lessons are planned for planting the new veggies and seeds.  This involvement will also instill more respect and pride for the garden, a realization that we must be careful and take great care in how we maneuver though the garden.  We have spacing to think about, seed depth, etc.  Also, where to plant what plants/seeds, how to divide gardening opportunities with the 2 other pre-k classes, finding time to plan, and do all the other mundane, but necessary paperwork and daily tasks.

Amazing discovery reveals to us nature's balance...

I had noticed that our small sweet pepper plants were missing some leaves.  Being that it is very accessible to little hands, and we have a new batch of 66 pre-k kids using this playground, I figured that the leaves were getting picked off by the kids.  We also had very heavy rain from tropical storm Lee.  Most of the plants have slowed in production, which is fine as we are about to switch to fall veggies.

During our outside time yesterday, L. and I were doing our usual garden inspection.  L. is one of my kids that consistently checks the garden as soon as we get outside, gotta love it!  With his handy bucket, L proceeded to fill it with a large harvest of green beans.  As I inspected our pepper plants, I stumbled upon something awesome that I had learned about when researching beneficial and harmful garden insects.  I find this subject particularly fascinating, as I have learned that certain types of plants can be planted to attract insects that will combat the bad guys. This falls into a category referred to as companion planting, I will get into more details in a future post, but this is definitely a HUGE part of our future gardening plans.  A great example of a balanced ecosystem.  A great way to draw in the kids attention, keep them interested, and encourage them to look more closely, more often.

Anyway, here it is, finding this guy in our garden actually makes me feels like I have achieved something, like I am moving up my personal, (imaginary) levels of 'gardener status,' lol.

Horn worm, with parasitic wasp cocoons!

Cool!  This guy was on a stem of one of our pepper plants.  Horn worms are known to do some serious damage in gardens.  They can quickly eat through many leaves before one even realizes there is a problem.  Their markings are beautiful, and they camouflage easily on plants.  They turn into a large moth, the sphinx moth I believe, though there may easily be wider range of varieties.  At this point, I am happy to have known it was a 'horn worm with parasitic wasps!'

Now, about parasitic wasps.  These guys are AWESOME!  We spotted a small wasp over the summer KILLING a caterpillar, and then flying off with it.  The boys LOVED that!  The other more incredible thing about whatever type of parasitic wasp this is, is that they lay their eggs inside horn worms!  The worm becomes the 'host' for the eggs, when the eggs hatch, they eat the insides of the horn worm, then chew out of it and create a cocoon on the horn worm's body!  Ewww, right!?  Gotta love mother nature's pest control methods! :)  After showing this guy to the pre-k kids, I stayed later to show the after-school kids, since many of them were with me over the summer.  We were all fascinated.  I explained that if we find horn worms, we would remove them from the garden.  But, because this one has eggs on it, we want to keep it in our garden.  This will allow the population of good guys to thrive and protect our plants!