On Tuesday morning, Emily and I arrived to the Edible Peace Patch to find an extensive list of jobs to complete. We immediately decided to split up the work so we could accomplish more. While she mowed (a job that I don't know exactly how to do), I watered everything in the garden, whether it was fully-grown or just sprouting. Thankfully, the heat of the day had not reached its peak by noon, halfway through our time, although we still glistened slightly with sweat from the manual labor. When I finished watering, I decided to tackle the next most important task on our list: turning the compost. I was on a role with the shoveling until I reached a nest of cockroaches that had decided they could use the compost as much as we could. At that point, due to my slight fear of cockroaches, I thought it best to take a break from shoveling and work on the lesson for the students.
The second grade kids came out towards the end of our time, and we could immediately see how much energy they had. They had no interest in sitting to fill out a page on the parts of the plant, instead, they jumped right up to see first-hand. While the amount of their energy was startling at first, it soon brightened our day, making us just as excited about the garden. While I was asking them questions about which plant was which and what part of each plant became our food, the kids were very eager to be the first to answer correctly. Their excitement to learn is inspiring to someone like me who has been in school for so long. They renewed my enthusiasm to learn everything I can and to teach them all that I know.
Thanks to Emily, the Edible Peace Patch is nicely mowed and looking great.
The healthy growing bell peppers that the kids identified almost immediately.
Some of the beautiful flowers growing in the pollinator garden.
The second graders took turns guessing how high the corn will grow when it starts to come up.
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