Gardening affords a marvelous educational opportunity. Children not only learn horticulture and botany, by direct experience, they learn to share, to respect others rights and property, to work within a team and reap the rewards of their labor. Youth gardens can be in containers, under lights, or can be habitat, ornamental or vegetable, outside in the ground.

Habitat Gardens

A habitat garden provided food, shelter and nesting places for wildlife and insects.

Small trees and shrubs such as dogwood, Allegheny plum, and the Japanese tree lilac provide cover and a place for songbirds to perch. Dogwoods and plums also provide berries that are a food source for mockingbirds, catbirds, cardinals and robins. Of the 320 hummingbird species only one visits the northeast. Nevertheless, it is very beautiful and very small. The ruby throated hummingbird is less than 4" inches long, iridescent green. The male has a red throat and the throat of the female is white. Their wings move so rapidly that they are a blur. They are a joy to see as they hover and fly backwards. They have a long needle-like bill for sipping nectar from flowers. Bright red and yellow flowers with deep wells attract and feed hummingbirds. A few examples are: cardinal flowers, fuchsia, and scarlet sage. Hummingbirds also eat insects and sip the juices of ripe fruit. Butterflies prefer butterfly bush, butterfly weed, zinnia, cosmos, coneflowers, and native phlox; these are just a few plants butterflies favor for their nectar.

Plants should also be provided to serve as a food source for the larva of butterflies. These food plants are specific to the larva of certain butterflies. For example, the larva of the black swallowtails feed on parsley, Queen Anne’s lace and sweet fennel. Monarch larva prefer milkweed and painted lady larva relish thistle.

Butterflies need the heat of the sun to raise their body temperatures, to help them fly. Therefore the garden should be situated in a sunny location, if possible.

You’ll also want to attract beneficial insects (ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies and ground beetles) to the garden. They will deter any harmful insects or pests. Many of the pollen plants that attract butterflies will also attract beneficial insects. Include herbs such as dill, lavender, and coriander.

For complete lists of the information mentioned above contact our office. We will send you information free of charge.

Here are a few books and web sites you may want to visit:
Butterfly Gardening – Xerces Society, Sierra Club Books 1990
The Life of the Hummingbird – Alexander F. Skutch, Crown Publishers, Inc. New York 1973
Insect Disease & Weed I.D.Guide - Jill Jesiolowski Cebenko & Deborah L. Martin, editors, Rodale, Inc. 2001

www.organicgardening.com
www.butterflies.com
www.naba.org

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A Classroom Outdoors

School gardens are growing in popularity because they are an extension of the classroom. They give students and teachers the opportunity to transform the stark concrete and iron exterior of the typical school into a beautiful oasis. The garden can be located on any grassy space around the school building. If the area around the school is totally paved, a container garden or raised bed garden can be erected.

Having a garden, large or small, will give students the tools necessary to develop an awareness of the natural world. Student can use basic math skills as they develop a garden design. They can utilize their measuring skills and calculate the quantity of various materials they will need. Science can be enlivened with various hands-on projects that the garden can provide. There is a great deal to write about and report on in the garden. Writing and language skills will be enhanced by recording the progress of the garden, taking notes on the development of plants and the activities of insects and birds. Doing a few warm up exercises to loosen muscles and deep breathing to relax will begin an important physical fitness component in the garden. Nature, the ultimate artist, will bring out creativity as students interpret what they observe on paper, on film, in song, etc.

Douglas School in Port Richmond showing off their raised bed victory garden

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The garden can connect students with important environmental issues:

**Air Pollution The fact that vehicle exhaust is the leading cause of air pollution; the impact it has on our health as increasing numbers of adults and especially children develop respiratory diseases, such as asthma and allergies; the role plants, trees and forests play by removing carbon dioxide and other impurities from the air. Plants also produce the oxygen that we breathe.

**Water Pollution The effect that rain water run off has on carrying pollutants into our water supply; putting trash and other wastes into the gutter also pollute our water supply; the importance of gardens, parks and wetlands in helping us eliminate rainwater run off and the negative impact it has on water quality.

**Recycling Reusing paper and wood to reduce the number of trees that would be cut down to produce these products; making compost by recycling leaves and food scraps. The healthy balanced soils produced can eliminate the need to use chemicals on lawns and gardens.

Students can discuss these issues in terms of what they can do to improve their environment and conserve our vital resources.

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Gardening with Children- It’s Different

Children like to plant things that are pretty, taste good or are easy to grow. They also like the biggest, ugliest and fastest-growing plants. They don’t like to cultivate…or to weed. They also don’t like washing garden vegetables and tend to make mud puddles. Still, gardening with children can be enormous fun, if you are prepared.

**Weeds Be prepared for a weedy garden. You might consider various mulches to reduce the labor of pulling weeds. Grownups usually hate to weed, so why should kids love it?

**Perfection If the kids manage to create a mini Versailles in the backyard…be suspicious. Most kids plant more than they can take care of, or eat. Weeds tend to grow during the height of the baseball and swimming season. Try to arrange to have something like peas and radishes to harvest before the dog days of summer, just keep them interested. Waiting to harvest is hard for the young. You adult gardeners who wait for the first tomato know what we are talking about.

**Sharing This is one of the greatest pleasures of gardening. Try to plant vegetables that are easily divided up, so kids can swap their harvests. Limited space gardeners can choose radishes, cherry tomatoes, beans, lettuce, scallions. Those with more space will find they get abundant harvests from cucumbers and squashes.

**Catalogs Seed catalogs generally begin in January and provide snow shoveling gardeners with hours of pleasant reverie. Some companies will provide school classes with multiple copies. Have kids go through literature and make informed choices of vegetable varieties based on disease susceptibility, days to harvest, space needed and other considerations. Kids tend to gravitate toward the exotic, so let them, up to a point. Plan for a core group of fail-safe vegetables with a few oddballs selected to generate interest.

**Tools Avoid heavy, landscaper sized tools; they will fast exhaust a small gardener. (Even some adults will find smaller, lighter tools preferable.) Look for iron rakes with small heads. Straight handled tools adapt to a gardener’s height more easily than D-handled ones and can even be cut to fit (the end must be rounded again to fit the hand.) Keeping all tools sharp and oiled also will make the work much easier.

**The Plot It may seem obvious, but start small. Garden beds should not be wider than four feet and accessible from both sides. Young gardeners should not have to step into the plot in order to plant, weed or cultivate. It is too easy to step on a precious tomato plant while encouraging carrots to grow. A trellis or teepee of bamboo for vining crops makes the plot more noticeable and “important.”

**Layout Planting in wide rows (also called double rows) and intercropping pack more plants into the plot than traditional spacing. The result is bigger harvests and fewer weeds – an idea kids can readily appreciate. Garden plans also should fit the school time frame. Summer vacation away from the garden should mean planting mostly spring crops such as lettuce, radishes, beets, spinach, scallions and peas. These can be replanted for a fall crop.

**Having Fun This comes naturally. Kids have a great desire to explore, nurture and learn. Encourage them to experiment. Avoid excessive meddling and they will very likely favor you with some interesting questions. They might even teach you something. Even if the first harvest is thready carrots and six snap beans, lay praise on with a trowel! Just getting something to grow is quite a thrill.

Excerpted from an article by Victoria Jahn
Get Ready, Get Set Grow
Ideas for Parents and Teachers,
Brooklyn Botanic Garden

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