Two "Tales": Deer Trouble & Sprout Lesson

Sad news first. The deer ate everything.

All those beautiful peas?Gone.

The fine looking arugula?Stripped.

This Oregano?  Eaten to the root.

I expected that the radish and the lettuce would be nibbled regularly, but wasn’t planning on feeding the wildlife so well.

The good news is that children’s exploration of the garden continues and learning is successful. We move forward, taking natural animal hunger into consideration. It is likely that a ground hog has also participated in the feast. It is likely that birds will go after the beans and strawberries, too. So a couple of plans are in the works and will be posted when we have the deer deterrent plans in place.

Strawberries continue to grow nicely.

The threat to strawberries is when they are deliciously ripe.

The chives and sage are thriving. The sage is in the middle of the bee balm photo.

What do we do when the rain and weather prevent us from being in the garden? We bring the garden inside! Today’s lesson was on sprouts. We started mung beans sprouting for future tasting. It should take about a week. We viewed a variety of sprouts - potatoes that are ready for planting and volunteer spaghetti squash sprouts from the compost bin. We know they are spaghetti squash volunteers because we put a full, split spaghetti squash in the compost bin earlier this year.

Then we examined soil. Two sources of soil were brought in- soil from a well-developed, healthy, open air, compost bin, and soil from the woods. Both sources were more “humus” than “top soil”. The children answered the question, “What is in soil?” by digging and sorting their found items. Sticks, sprouts, different types of leaves, roots, acorn tops, crab apple seeds, stones, a bit of trash, petals, and a variety of insects were all discovered and sorted. Through digging and sorting, children were building science understanding and math skills, too!