Insects and Rocks–July 19, 2012

Sophia, a second grader, recorded the soil temp as 80° and the air as 78° with hot and sunny weather. Anna asked the kids which beneficial insects might help the garden and there were lots of responses: butterflies, ladybugs, bees, dragonflies and worms. We looked in the garden for some of them and found eggs on a kale leaf and tossed some unbeneficial insects out of the garden.

We picked kale that was beginning to have holes in the leaves and put them in the compost. We harvested lots of green beans and two giant zucchinis! Each child took green beans home in a paper bag and two lucky ones got the zucchinis. The corn is steadily growing with #10 at 35″ and the tallest sunflower (# 6) measuring 70″.

Next we looked at some books with insects and tried to decide which ones to paint on rocks to put into the garden. A base coat of acrylic paint was started by each child to be finished at a later date.

  • pick kale leaves with holes
  • look for insects that harm the garden and toss them out
  • harvest green beans & zucchini
  • weed and water
  • paint insects on rocks for the garden