"The Garden of Weeding"

The boys had their gardening class today at Harlinsdale Farm.  The children's garden is inside this white picket fence (the water tower for The Factory is in the background).

If Rylan would smile, this could have been a really cute picture :)

The title of today's class was "The Garden of Weeding".  So the kids first learned all about weeds - what they are, why we don't like them, etc.  We also got to see lots of examples.

Next the kids planted tomato plants in two raised beds.

Pointing to their plants (we should be able to remember which ones they planted in the coming weeks):

(Rylan's is in the center.)

Next Ms. Lisa (the teacher for the class) talked about aphids and ladybugs.  Ladybugs eat aphids (which suck the liquid from the plants).  Ms. Lisa had a special bag she purchased that had 1,000 ladybugs in it.  She released the ladybugs near the tomato plants the kids had just planted.

Carter usually won't touch bugs (unless it's with the bottom of his shoe which I've been trying to get him to stop doing!), but he kept picking up ladybugs and letting them crawl on him.

Rylan hasn't been enjoying the class as much as Carter (I think he's worn out from being at school all day), but I kept him going by reminding him that there are juice boxes at the end of class.  To him, this is the best part!