Thursday, June 18, 2009

MORE WORMS

On June 4th, STARworks Garden hosted another worm workshop on STARworks premises. 
2 groups of fourth graders gathered under the shade of the big oak trees in front of STARworks building. 44 children!
Mrs. Lamonds had kept a worm bin in the classroom all year and her students had taken care of the worms - feeding them and learning about their behavior. Now it was time to harvest the castings, or "vermicompost". Kids took turns separating worms from castings and walking on our brand new walking trail. One of the boys said that he ran 16 laps - that's 2 miles! 
Here is Melanie Lamonds with a group of fourth graders sorting out the worms.
After harvesting the castings, Mrs. Lamonds' and Mrs. Comer's classes each started a new bin - with shredded newspaper, some compost from the old bins, and a bunch of worms. We also went to check on the flower bed that the kids planted a little more than a month ago. They recognized some plants, marveled over the height of the sunflowers, and checked the little watermelons that had started to form. Yesterday when I looked at the plants - the sunflowers were blooming, and some of the watermelons are about 4 inches in diameter! I can't wait for those kids to come back to the garden when school starts, to taste the fruits of their seeds!

2 comments:

JLK Jewelry said...

That is so great how many kids you are educating about gardening!! Hope your garden didn't flood out. Our asparagus were standing in water this morning (we had 4") and I hope theywon't rot!!

kriips said...

that's too sad!!! I hope they will be OK too... it's always the extremes here it seems - temperatures fluctuate a lot, and it's either drought or way too much rain...