Students and teachers are doing their best to follow health guidelines, and most Little Green Thumbs classrooms are too tight for our regular indoor garden. It’s therefore a true joy to learn about indoor growing projects where children are excited to learn about plants, food and insects.
At Roberta MacAdams School, the kindergarten classes have lots of plants on the windowsill, including Christmas cactus and many other houseplants. In addition, they have managed to make space for their Little Green Thumbs garden.
The children have been growing the garden since September, planting seeds of all kinds. They have squished a tomato to find the seeds inside; they have grown pumpkin seeds to see if they would grow in the indoor garden, and they have planted a “jar garden”. The LGT garden has already produced beans, peppers, and the Tiny Tim Tomatoes are in full bloom. The students know to gently tap the flower clusters for good pollination. Some beans were left on the plant to mature and dry out, and soon the children will crack open the pods to harvest the bean seeds. A pepper plant has produced a dark red, almost purple fruit – very exciting indeed!
As with any garden, there are challenges. Most indoor gardens provide a perfect home for fungus gnats, tiny flies that feed on the organic matter in the potting mix. The flies become a bit of a nuisance in the classroom. Ms Brown told me that she tried all kinds of methods; finally play sand was spread over the top of the potting mix, and that halted the gnat proliferation. Both success and challenges are excellent learning opportunities, and so the children collected and studied dead fungus gnats that accumulated on the windowsill. They learned about their wings, stripes and legs. Even gnat “poo” was important to study.
“The kids tried our purple pepper yesterday in class. After much discussion on whether or not it would be spicy they were pleased to find out it was ‘tasty’ and ‘juicy’. We also discussed what a greenhouse is, why they are helpful and how they work. Great ideas and wonders about this.
We are currently gathering seeds from home and learning about where seeds come from. We are going to start some adventure growing next week of the many seeds coming in from home. Currently we have sweet peppers, apple and honeydew melon. ”
The kindergarten teachers told me about two boys that absolutely love the garden; for hours they sit and talk near the plants, and share their gardening experiences. These are the delightful stories that keep us going during this pandemic, and provide hope for the New Year.
Claudia Bolli, Little Green Thumbs