"Raising the Dirt"

The boys had Growing Kids Educational Garden again yesterday afternoon.  Yesterday's class was called, "Raising the Dirt".  The description for the class was: "Learn what makes good dirt or bad dirt while planting the new raised beds in the garden."

Harlinsdale Farm is really pretty.  This is the drive to the parking lot.

The kids got to plant potatoes yesterday.  They were just cut up older potatoes that had big sprouts growing out of them.  Carter and Rylan planted theirs in the raised bed with topsoil.  Half the kids planted theirs in the regular dirt that they tilled up with hoes.  We are going to see which grow better.

Next we gathered materials to make compost.  Each kid got a baggie and added some grass or other greens, a scoop of dirt, and a handful of hay.  We poked a few holes in the bag last night and added a little water.  We'll add a few things like coffee grounds or egg shells today.  The boys are supposed to shake the bags up everyday and bring them back next week.  They will then add their compost to the garden.

Last the boys planted zinnia seeds (actually only Carter participated  Rylan was getting stubborn about things by now).

Ms. Lisa gave each child several seeds and then they were supposed to scatter them in a marked area and step on the seeds to push them down a little.

After that, everyone got juice boxes - yeah!  The boys generally enjoy the class but after being in school all day and now being outside, it's hard for them to do the "sit and listen" part of the class (there is a huge tarp under some trees that they sit on to listen to Ms. Lisa and then they go do a project in the garden and repeat).  They want to play with the sticks everywhere and just dig in any dirt they can find.  They are doing fine but there are lots of distractions outside which makes it a little hard sometimes.

Before leaving a grabbed a few pictures of the kids by one of the fences.  I need to bring my good camera with us next time instead of just my phone and get some good ones.