Happy Halloween, compost stew anyone?

Despite a threatening cloud cover, we were fortunate enough to make it through our shift in the Edible Peace Patch with no rain.  Yay! 
It was great to be out in the garden with the kids again today after missing a week because of fall break.  The kids must have felt the same because the extra energy was palpable.  Plus it is Halloween, one of the most exciting days in children's lives!
Despite the anticipation of candies later on this evening, both Ms. Morris and Ms. Early’s classes were eager to throw on their aprons and become “compost chefs”.  
“We are going to be making food for the plants today because they are making food for us and they need to eat too,” we explain.  Soon the initial aversion to the food scraps on the table was gone and the kids were fighting each other to grab a mushy grape or a stale piece of bread to throw into our “stew”.  

Initial hesitation over the creepy-crawlies in the compost also melted away as the children found a few bugs they recognized like rolly-pollies and millipedes.  We taught them of the importance of these insects and how they help us in the process of decomposition so that our lovely stew can be turned into delicious, nutritious soil for the plants.  
We finished up the day planting a beautiful foot-tall bean plant from a previous lesson a few weeks ago into our three sisters garden, explaining the benefits of growing certain crops together in a polyculture, as has been practiced on this continent for millennia.   

Thanks for following!
Forest

"You are what you eat eats too."
Michael Pollan