santa barbara country n news-kids compost

SANTA BARBARA COUNTRY N NEWS-KIDS COMPOST

this is the picture of one of the garden beds from the elementary schools kindergarten garden that i volunteer at once a week for a couple of hours during the school year

now in this bed this year the kids prepped the soil then planted lettuce swiss chard see the big one thats left kale carrots tomatoes green beans sweet peas
yes they ate all that veggie stuff they grew in the garden

after the school year was over i came in and cleaned up the bed
i added a lot of garden soil
i left the two cherry tomatoes that i will keep growing  this summer so that there will be ripe tomatoes to pick and eat for them when they return to school this fall

included in the soil is layers of the compost that they made in their blue worm composter bin

my wife she found this blue storage bin for me to use
i drilled holes around the sides and in the bottom
i put in a layer of newspapers to act as a cover on the bottom holes
this would keep the worms from escaping and would allow all the liquid stuff produced to drop down into a large metal cooking dish with high sides that sat under the blue bin

in that dish would be this dark nutrient rich liquid the kids called worm juice
we would dilute it with our rainwater and water all the veggies with it
they sure liked pouring that worm juice mix all over the garden

here is how we made the blue worm composter compost

i added a starter handful of worms and compost from our community garden as well as some from the teachers garden probably less than 100 worms
to that we added pages and pages of ripped to pieces shredded newspapers

the kids layered in leaves that were collected and piled last fall in the corner of the garden
then
they added food scraps from home and from their snacks and their lunches
the teacher had to watch since some wanted to put all their lunch in there
over the year they also added any weeds from the garden and any veggie trimmings from the garden

the blue box was kept moist
all of this was covered with a layer of newspapers
then
the blue lid was kept on top to keep out vermin

then
the kids watched as the worm population grew and grew and the worm compost grew and grew
and
the worm composter got heavier and heavier

many a time during the year the kids would dig in the composter looking at the worms and rolly pollies and other things that somehow got i there

once we put a pumpkin from halloween in there and it slowly disappeared

at the end of the year we harvested all the worms and counted them
each kid would put 10 worms in a small cup then 10 cups of them in a larger cup to make a 100
then they took the 100 worm cups and put them in a larger cup to count to 1000
in the end
we went from less than 100 worms to more than 1000 worms

then
after the school was over with

this is what the bin looked like as i harvested over 20 gallons of worm compost and spread it out over the garden beds

if you have ever used worm compost in the garden you know how rich it is for the soil

its this years kindergardeners as i call them contribution to next years kindergardeners garden

the most squeamish of the group who wouldnt touch garden soil and most definitely not a worm
became the ones that wanted to go first when digging out the worms in the worm bin

my job was successful

another group indoctrinated

the organicgreen doctor