Tuesday 30 June 2015

Worms Love Leftovers!



This past Saturday morning welcomed in some beautiful summer weather. We started the day off with some weeding and watering of the Kids Grow plot as well as neighbouring plots with "Please Water Me" signs. After a week of almost non-stop sunshine and scorching weather, the plants definitely needed a long drink! 

After finishing up with our gardening maintenance, the kids and their parents were thrilled to welcome Amy Sparks of Green Calgary, as she came to teach us all about worms in the garden, and what they like and don't like to eat! We were very interested to learn about worm anatomy (do you know which end of the worm their head is?!) with the help of her big (fake) worm friend, Squirmy Wormy! She also taught us how to tell apart baby, teenager and adult worms from each other. 



We then sorted food and other items into "yummy", "yucky" or "maybe" piles trying to decide what we thought the worms would like to eat. Amy helped all the kids through this activity and explained that worms like a lot of the same things we like to eat, except for any meat, citrus-y or acidic foods, dairy and milk, salty foods, and garbage. Interesting!

After that, Amy brought out her (real, live!) worm friends for everyone to observe under magnifying glasses or hold (gently!). It was really incredible to see the kids were at first quite nervous and hesitant to actually touch and hold the worms but became quite comfortable and confident handling them. Most of the parents were too "grossed out" to hold them, but the kids held nothing back. They were able to pick out body parts of the worms that they had just learned about, and to see if a worm was a baby, teenager or adult (and even to see if they were pregnant based on how swollen their "clitellum" was!). The kids also loved seeing how worms would clump up into a big wriggly ball together as a "squirm of worms". 



With Amy's time at the Kids Grow! garden up, everyone was eager for story time in the orchard. After story time, we enjoyed a snack of mandarin oranges (which the kids were quick to point out that, being a citrus fruit, the worms wouldn't like the peels!) and green grapes. Although it was scorching outside and very sunny, everyone was itching to play a game. First up was 'The Longest Worm', where we hid sparkly worm "pieces" (bits of pipecleaner or ribbon) all around the orchard. The kids were split into two teams: Team Worm and Team Squirmy Wormy. The teams had to try to find pieces of the worm and string them together to make "the longest worm". Amazingly, both team's worms ended up being the EXACT same length!! A tie!

After that, some of the older kids wanted to play "Farmer", where there are 2-3 "farmers" on one side of a rope/line with their "crops" (seed packages or plastic fruit) spread out on their "plot" that they have to protect. All of the other kids are "garden pests/animals" who stand on the other side of the rope. They have to capture as much of the farmer's crop as they can without being tagged. If they are tagged in the farmers plot, they have to freeze wait for an animal friend to unfreeze them by running under their arm. The kids played several rounds of this and finally it was time for sharing circle, where we all reflected on what learned and loved from the days activities and what Amy Spark had taught us about worms in the garden. 

Thank you Amy and Green Calgary!

Wednesday 24 June 2015

Neighbour Day!

This past Saturday, June 20th, we celebrated Neighbour Day! This is a very special day in Calgary because it celebrates the anniversary of the Calgary Floods two years ago as we remember and reflect on the support of the community and kind acts of our neighbours to get the city back in working order.



In the community garden, plot owners will put a 'Please Water Me' sign in their garden if they will be away and are relying on a friendly neighbour to help water the garden. With the scorching heat, these friendly acts of kindness are necessary as many vegetable, flower and other edible plants are sensitive to the heat and cannot survive drought-like conditions. The kids took the time to weed and water our garden and then headed over to other plots to water their garden's as well.








We tried to distract some of the father's that had shown up for the day's events to make a special Father's Day Craft. Each child had the chance to make their very own garden. They planted a variety of different crops including beans, corn and flowers. We also saw an abundance of wildlife in their gardens. Butterflies, dragonflies and ladybugs galore!




Next up was snack time! We had a delightful rainbow of colours on the table with red, green and yellow bell peppers from Community Natural Foods. We also harvested some thyme, sage and chives from our garden to make some herbed cream cheese on crackers. Yum! Check out the recipe:

Ingredients

Softened Cream Cheese
Fresh Sage
Fresh Chives
Fresh Thyme
Harlic 

Directions

1. Place cream cheese in a bowl and let it sit a room temperature for a few minutes to soften
2. Collect herbs from garden, the above herbs are suggestions, add to taste, you can also used dried herbs
3. wash and cut herbs into small pieces and add to cream cheese 
4. finely grate garlic to taste and add to mixture
5. mix well and enjoy on crackers, toast, as a dip for vegetables! (for an intensified flavour, put the mixture in the fridge and let it sit overnight before consuming)




The day ended with a very fun game of hide and seek and we shared our favourites moments of the day together :)

Next week, we'll be learning all about worms!

Wednesday 17 June 2015

Helpers and Pests of the Garden

Since it had rained heavily the day before, there was no need to water the garden so we decided to weed the community orchard for our opening activity of the day! We learned about why we engage in the task of weeding and how to do it properly in order to ensure the health of our fruit trees, strawberry patch and other plants in the beautiful orchard.



We collected half a garbage bag full of weeds!


One of the volunteers sneakily hid an assortment of felt and pipe cleaner animals and critters around the community garden and orchard for the kids to find. After the scavenging around to find all of them, we came together to talk about which ones are pests, which ones are helpers and why we want to naturally attract and deter animals and critters from our garden.

We then went on a walk around the garden and orchard to find evidence of pest damage on the plants. The red bumps on the currant plants indicate a aphid infestation and the holes on the potato plants and presence of many potato beetles told us that they were enjoying their feast a little too much.

Planting a variety of crops in our garden already makes it resistant to pest infestation. We also made a natural pesticide to ward off those pesky critters.

Natural Pesticide Recipe

Ingredients

5 cups water
Pinch of cayenne (chili powder)
Skins from one onion
Skins from one garlic bulb

Directions

1. Peel garlic and onion and place the skins in a glass pitcher
2. Boil water and pour over garlic and onion skins, add pinch of cayenne and stir
3. Let the concoction sit overnight, strain and pour into spray bottle
4. Spray on the leaves of plants every few days
5. Pesticide will last for several areas in a cool area
6. Leftover skins can buried into the soil of the garden nearby plants 


Aphids eating the currant plant!
Can you spot the potato beetle?
                             
After our educational journey in pests vs helpers, we read a story about a bumblebee named 'Buzz' and played a classic game of 'Capture the Crops'. Our day ended with a sharing circle about our favourite and most cherished parts of the day.