Our Veggie Patch!

Finally we got our vegetable patch, this morning when we went outside K, our handy man, was busy getting the boxes to the little garden on the side where we decided to set the veggie patch. The children were very curious about biotechnology and started to ask questions. They gathered looking at the boxes while K was stacking them on top of each other.

When K started to fill the boxes with soil, K, Z and F were the first children to explore. I initially assumed that they liked the texture of the soil, but I later learned that they were looking for earth worms as K told them that there were many of them hiding in there. J rushed to the sandpit and brought a little bucket and started to collect the worms, but after explaining to them that earthworms were important to plough the soil by tunneling through it so that their tunnels provide the soil with passageways through which air and water can circulate, and that's important because soil microorganisms and plant roots need air and water just like we do. Without some kind of ploughing, soil becomes compacted, air and water can't circulate in it, and plant roots can't penetrate it. The children then decided that the earthworms needed to stay alive in the soil so our plants could grow.

When K brought in the garden mix in the big wheel burrow, Z and F helped him pushing it all the way up the pathway to the garden. When K tipped up the compost mix in the boxes he asked the children if they could help spread it evenly all over. 

This was good as you could see the interest that the children were taking in preserving nature and getting the planting started. According to Kellert(2002) as cited in Gonzalez-Mena(2008, p. 243)”society today has become disconnected from its natural origins that people no longer recognise our basic dependence on nature as a condition of growth and development.

Z and F, had always showed an interest in gardening and specially helping K in whatever he was doing. Sometimes the children did weeding whilst at other times they would get their little wheelbarrows and follow K around. This time the children helped K to spread the garden mix and they listened attentively to him when he asked them to wash their hands after they had finished spreading the soil. I was impressed with the children’s hard work and perseverance as they did not lose interest and leave what they were doing to do something else, thus indicating their love for gardening. Te Whāriki states that “children develop a relationship with the natural environment and knowledge of their own place in the environment” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 90).

We all know that a child’s early years are a crucial time of development and that educational experiences during these first years significantly influence the rest of their lives. Hands-on projects like gardening allow children to explore at their own pace and engage in experiential learning have a high rate of success We would like our children to learn about nature and living things, and we therefore encourage them to explore in the garden and look after the plants. Now that we have started on the veggie patch this will be a great opportunity for them to learn about growing food and taking care of plants and maybe encourage some children who do not like to eat veggie to start trying them!

 Who knows maybe some children will start their own veggie patch at home.