Week 6 Wednesday Mighty Mites

All About Bugs

By Eric Reinert

Puppet Show- Insects in the Garden

Some insects are good, while others are bad

Aphids: Eat plant parts (bad)

Ladybugs: eat aphids (good) –Kids were asked what color ladybugs were (they were correct)

Butterflies: pollinate by moving nectar

Caterpillars: turn into butterflies, but are troublemakers in their adolescence (much like some children 🙂

Outside– Squash bug eggs were found on zucchini

Interesting fact, when squash bugs are squished they smell like green apple

Checked plants to see which ones could be harvested—tomatoes, beets, onions, basil, swiss chard.

 

Snack- Ants, Aphids, & Ladybugs on a log (raisins, watermelon seeds, craisins)

The kids were cautious to try, but enjoyed them.

Quotes- 

“One of my onions is ready to pick!!”

“Oh no! Get away from my plants you weeds!”

(Sarcastically) “What do you think, they haven’t even come up out of the ground yet.” (when asked how his sunflowers were growing)

“I’m going to eat only the ants” (referring to snack)

“I don’t like the aphids” (also referring to snack)

Week 7 Seed Sowers

Very busy day weeding in the garden.  We filled two large buckets full of weeds and still have more in our gardens.

We talked about decomposers: pill bugs, sow bugs, centipedes, and worms.  The dead stuff they eat turns back into nutrients for new plants to use to help them grow.  We compared them to nature’s garbage men.

For harvest, we had purple beans, zucchini, beets, peas (still in August!?) carrots, and snapdragons.

Because we worked so hard at weeding, we had the sprinklers running while we harvested to help cool us.

We made gluten free pizza crust and basil cheese pizza for snack.  It was a sticky good time and the pizza was yummy!

Week 7 Monday Mighty Mites

Beautiful day in the garden.  It was all about dirt and decomposers in class.  We talked about what will happen once winter comes and how the plants in our garden are annuals that only live for one summer.

We checked on our gardens, weeding and watering.  For harvest, we had beets, Swiss chard, onions, basil, a couple tomatoes, a few zucchini, and purple beans.

For snack, we made dirt and worms with sand, seeds, and red rocks.  It was a hit!

Week 6 Garden Chefs

Beautiful morning in the garden for class today.  We were able to take advantage of the cooler weather and really make a dent in all the weeds that were enjoying the hot weather.  We filled over 3 large tubs with weeds to be composted.

We also took out our peas and helped train our cucumbers up the trellis.  We tied tomatoes, checked for squash bugs (all our plants were clean!), caught a few Japanese beetles, and weeded some more.

For harvest: onions, basil, tomatoes, kale, carrots, peppers, peas, broccoli, zucchini, and an accidental potato 🙂

For snack, we made fresh lemonade and a green bean and basil veggie salad.

We also harvested the garlic that was planting last fall.  The bulbs were very small, but still fun to pull.  We planted a mix of flowers in their place.

In the few minutes left in class, we caught insects: grasshoppers, stag beetles, slugs, and other garden guests.

Seed Sowers Week 6

Warmer than I was expecting this afternoon at the start of garden, but by the time class was over, it was starting to get cooler.  We had a buggy day in the garden.  We learned about George Washington Carver and the experiments he did with different plants that people can eat, especially peanuts and sweet potatoes.  We also talked about his observation of so many people planting cotton and the boll weevil that destroyed the cotton crop.

Unfortunately, we found some pests in our garden when we went checked them.  We have had to start doing Squash bug checks on our zucchini plants.  We found a lot of eggs and a couple of adults.  The fun thing with adult squash bugs is if you squish them, they smell like sour green apple.  One of the ones we squished, we even saw the eggs that were ready to be laid!

We also found several Japanese beetles that were starting to eat various leaves in the garden.

We saw mourning cloak and black swallowtail caterpillars, along with a few chrysalis!

We also found an insect I had never noticed in the garden.  After asking one of our bug experts, Jennie, I learned it is the nymph (kid) of a helmeted squash bug.  This means we have at least 2 different varieties of squash bugs to bother our zucchini plants!  We will have to be extra diligent in our checks!

For snack, we made harvest coleslaw since we harvested cabbage last week.

We harvested peas, broccoli, Swiss chard, purple beans, zucchini, tomatoes, beets, and onions.

Unfortunately, we did not get as many photos of everything this week because the camera battery died.  More photos next week!

 

 

Monday Mighty Mites Week 6

What a beautiful day in the garden!  We learned about insects and insect relatives this week in the garden.  Some insects are helpful like bees that pollinate flowers.  Some insects are protectors like ladybugs.  Some insects are trouble makers!  Unfortunately, when we were catching bugs, we mostly found troublemakers, especially squash bugs, squash bug eggs, and Japanese beetles!  The troublemakers we found got an extra long bath in a bucket of soapy water.  I don’t think they will be bothering our plants anymore.

For harvest we had broccoli, basil, a few purple beans, a few tomatoes, onions, and of course, Swiss chard.

For snack, we ate ants, aphids, and ladybugs on a log (oh, my!)  We thought they were quite tasty.  The ants were raisins, the aphids were watermelon kernels, the ladybugs were dried cranberries, and the log was celery with sunflower butter.

         

Week 5 Wednesday Mighty Mites

HOT! It was a hot afternoon in the garden, but we were still able to get all of our activities done.  We weeded, watered, harvested beets, onions, broccoli, Swiss chard, and basil.

We checked on our mystery seeds.  Still not sure what they are.

We had watermelon for snack with a seed spitting contest.

We squished tomatoes with our feet and planted the seeds to see if they would grow.

Week 5 Garden Chefs

Hot morning in the garden.  We did our normal garden tasks: weed, watering, and tying up tomatoes.  We also checked our zucchini for any squash bugs, squash bug eggs, and vine borers.  Happily, we did not find any on our plants.  It seems the squash bugs prefer the Seed Sowers’ zucchini.

We also started pulling some of the dead pea plants.  With this hot weather, I am guessing the rest will come out next week.

For harvest, we had basil, beets, kale, peas, and broccoli.

We were also very busy in the kitchen with two recipes this week.  Both featured broccoli.  We make potato broccoli pancakes and broccoli brownies.  Both turned out well.

  

Week 5 Seed Sowers

To begin class, we recorded the growth of our bean plants and checked the progress of our gardens.

The Scientist of the Week was Joseph Priestley.  He worked with air discovering different types.  His work proved that plants did something to the air that was beneficial for animal.  This work was built upon with the discovery of photosynthesis.

We spent about 15 minutes weeding.  For harvest, we had an excellent crop of cabbage.  We also had peas, beets, Swiss chard, one zucchini, parsley, and basil.

For snack, we investigated different types of fruit.  Predicting how many seeds were inside a fruit and tasting different varieties.  We tried apricots, avocados, cherries, mangoes, pomegranates, peaches, plums, raspberries, and kiwi.  We did a cherry pit seed spit contest to see how far we could spit the pits.

After snack, we planted seeds from each of the fruit to see if it would germinate and grow.

Week 5 Monday Mighty Mites

Our gardens are finally starting to catch up with the warm weather we have experienced.  We spotted some baby zucchini and picked our first ripe Sungold tomato! (With lots more green ones on the vine.)

We started with a puppet show which taught us that to a plant scientist, anything with seeds inside is a fruit.  So the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and cucumbers we call vegetables are fruit to plant scientist.

We tended our gardens.  For harvest, we had basil, beets, one tomato, broccoli, and Swiss Chard.

For snack, we ate a cool and refreshing summer fruit: watermelon.  Of course, we had the kind with seeds, since that is what plant scientist look for.  What to do with the seeds as you are eating your watermelon?  Have a watermelon seed spitting contest, naturally.

To wrap up our day filled with fruit we did ketchup feet/ tomato toes.  We looked at tomato flowers in the garden, the green fruits just starting to ripen, and then squished ripe tomatoes with our feet, collecting the seeds.  We planted the seeds to start the next life cycle.

Our mystery seeds and doing well.  One guess is that they might be a type of squash because the leaves are round like squash leaves.