Gardening Season Begins

This year, I got an early start on my garden, and I have been very pleased so far. In early spring, I planted peas, onions, carrots, radishes, spinach, broccoli transplants, cauliflower transplants, and brussels sprouts transplants. Oh, and lettuce... lots of lettuce. Actually, I attempted to remove the seeds from the packet and slipped, spilling the tiny seeds into the dirt. I sighed, decided not even to try extracting the nearly invisible seeds from the soil, and waited to see what would come up. As the picture shows, I will be doing quite a bit of thinning, but at least I can tell which kind is which, so we will have a variety of lettuces this year. I also planted strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries in various locations around my house and yard.

This weekend, Josh built me a second box garden next to the one we built last year. We even used some of our worm compost when filling the garden! I have so much more space now, and I also have more opportunity to rotate crops a bit to reduce pests and diseases. I could not believe how easily I filled the extra 32 square feet of space, though! I added butternut squash and two kinds of bush beans to the side garden, and I planted cucumbers, swiss chard, and celery in the old box garden with my spring veggies. I also put one asparagus plant along the side of my house, to see if it does well there. I would love fresh asparagus in the spring, but I do not want such a large perennial plant in my box gardens! In the new garden, I transplanted three kinds of tomatoes, two kinds of bell peppers, swiss chard, and a bunch of herbs, leaving myself plenty of space for a few more staggered plantings of bush beans.

Before we put in the side garden last year, weeds abounded in that spot next to our garage. Once I pulled out all the weeds and put in the veggies, however, I noticed something that was not visible before. The water run-off from our garage roof poured right into the middle of that garden, leaving a trench that eroded the soil from around any plants in that location. On Saturday, as I shopped for herbs at my favorite local greenhouse, I noticed watercress for sale. The sign said that the plants propagate themselves well in wet locations. I explained my garden situation to a person on staff, and he told me that his watercress has grown into a small waterfall in his yard and that it loves water! So, now I have watercress growing all along the edge of the trench in that garden. I hope that it will utilize previously unusable garden space, as well as hold the soil in place to prevent erosion during heavy rains. I really hope it works!

The kids, of course, love the garden and willingly eat anything we harvest - including onions, radishes, and leafy vegetables! They already love raw veggies, but they will even eat food that they typically dislike, as long as it comes from our own garden. I cannot wait to see how everything grows this year. I chose plants more wisely this year, after seeing what pests and diseases struck last year, and I think we will have a better harvest because of that. In a society in which many kids cannot even identify common vegetables, I love that my kids beg for things like eggplant and radishes! I cannot imagine a better way to teach kids about healthy eating than allowing them to harvest their own food directly from the family garden. Now, if only we lived in a neighborhood that allowed me to raise chickens...

Ladybugs and Litterbugs

Though I am a global warming skeptic, I believe very strongly in keeping the environment clean, reducing pollution, and leaving the earth beautiful for the next generation. Whether or not global warming exists, I do not like the idea of pumping the planet full of energy bi-products and waste. I like to do whatever I can to reduce the amount of waste our family produces. However, adding recycling to our garbage service costs significantly extra per month, so I felt thrilled this year when I discovered something called "SCRAP" in our community.

Each elementary school has a day assigned to it - for example, the second Tuesday of each month. On that day, a recycling trailer visits the school in the afternoon for a couple of hours to collect recycling, and the school gets any proceeds from the materials collected that day. So, once a month, I load plastic bins full of cans, newspapers, and plastics into the back of my van when I go to pick up Hannah. Before I get her, I go through the recycling lane, and the workers unload all of my recycling for me. It only takes a few minutes, and I do not even have to get out of my car. Could recycling be any more convenient?

In order to organize the recyclables, Josh purchased a set of large plastic drawers/removable bins to keep on our back porch. I can separate out the various items and save them for the monthly drop-off without having them take over my house or garage. Often, as I cook, I rinse out empty cans, remove the labels, and then ask one of the kids to put them in the bin on the porch. Though I viewed this as a "chore" initially, the kids actually fight over the job.

Ben especially enjoys recycling and often comes into the kitchen to ask if I have anything for him to put outside. Because of this interest, I decided to do a small unit on waste and recycling with him.

One day, as I was looking up the SCRAP schedule, I stumbled across this educational page on Richland County's Solid Waste Management Authority website. The elementary unit, "Windows on Waste," seems like an exceptional educational tool. The pdf file consists of 335 pages of lesson plans, worksheets, information, and resources to teach a very involved unit on waste, trash disposal, recycling, and the environment. I think the unit is slightly above Ben's level right now, but I plan to teach it sometime in the future.

This time, however, I chose the preschool/kindergarten level activity book called "Lucky the Ladybug." This book contains fun activities and games and tells the story of Lucky the Ladybug as she tried to save Bugville from becoming Litterville. With a small amount of extra teaching and guidance, Ben learned quite a bit of basic information about recycling and keeping the community clean. I printed the pdf, punched holes in it, and put it in a folder to make a little book.

I intend to add more activities as we explore recycling in more depth. Perhaps we will weigh our trash and our recycling and figure out what fraction of our trash we recycle. Or, maybe we will just count the bags we put out and see how many more bags we would use if we didn't recycle. We can also visit the worm bin again and see how we recycle our food waste as well.

Regardless of how we study this, I am glad that my kids are actively involved in helping me recycle. Hopefully, as they grow older, this will help them develop the habits and attitudes necessary for them to care for the earth as well. I do not want to raise "litterbugs," who think nothing of their waste and view it as someone else's problem. Instead, just like Lucky the Ladybug, I want them to care about their community and about the planet God gave them, and to focus on using its resources carefully and wisely, so they can leave a healthy, thriving planet to their own children. Maybe the small steps today will start them down the path to living carefully and sustainably for the rest of their lives.

Worms Love Coffee, Too

I have a thousand worms in my basement. I keep them in a special, layered bin filled with wet coconut fiber and moist, shredded newspaper. I feed them and check them regularly to ensure that they are healthy. Am I an invertebrate-lover with an odd affection for earthworms? No, though some think I am strange when they see me cuddling my pet bearded dragon. On the contrary, these worms work for me, eating my food scraps and creating rich compost for my garden.

I discovered vermicomposting, as it is called, sometime last year. I forget where I first read about it, but after quite a bit of research and some glowing first-hand success stories, I decided to order a worm bin. I could have chosen to build a worm bin using large plastic totes nested inside each other, but many reviews praised this model as the best for maintaining the right amount of moisture and keeping out fruit flies. Since Josh only reluctantly agreed to let me try worm composting, I decided that I would rather spend the extra money in order to reduce the nuisance of fruit flies, which might cause Josh to change his mind about the project.

The kids, of course, loved the idea of keeping worms in our basement. They celebrated when the bin arrived and helped me set it up and prepare the worms' bedding. Then, after I placed the order for one thousand red wiggler worms, they asked me every day when the worms would get here. Finally, about two weeks later, FedEx's website showed that the worms were out for delivery. I decided to make the whole day "Worm Day" in anticipation of their arrival.

First, we curled up together and read a book that my parents' gave Ben for his birthday - Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin. The kids love the silly story about the adventures of an earthworm, and though the story mostly just entertains, it also briefly explains how worms help the earth. Then, I brought all three kids over to the computer to show them a website I found that demonstrates how vermicomposting works. The Adventures of Vermi the Worm is an educational game created by the California Integrated Waste Management Board to teach school children about worm composting. Although the "game" is more of an interactive demonstration, the kids really enjoyed watching it and learning how the worm bin would work.

At last, the worms arrived. Amazingly, one thousand red wiggler worms fit into a tiny canvas bag about the size of a ziplock freezer bag. We brought the worms down to the basement and dumped them into the bin. After allowing them to settle in for a bit, we buried some food scraps in their bedding. In order to avoid rotting and an unpleasant odor, we started off with just a small amount of food - some crushed egg shells, chopped banana and cucumber peels, an apple core, and a few tea bags. However, the worms also eat and compost something that I, too, enjoy every day... coffee! Actually, I drink my two cups of morning coffee and then the worms enjoy the leftovers. They happily eat the coffee grounds, filter and all. You can see the tiny worm nestled in the damp coffee filter at the top of the picture below:

This morning, after our weekend away, I went downstairs to check on the worms and make sure that they are still alive and eating. I found them throughout the food scraps, busily converting my trash into castings that will nourish my garden next spring.

I love that something this simple helps the environment by reducing my waste and helps my garden by providing a rich, organic compost. Hopefully, my kids are also learning fun and easy ways to be good stewards of this planet, which they will one day inherit from us. If my kids learn this lesson well, I will gladly share my morning coffee with thousands of slimy pink invertebrates!