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.