Friday June 19th ... Perth P.S. returns

Perth Public School returns

It has been a month since the children planted their lettuce and the little flowers.

They wanted to come back to see how the garden has grown and to have some fresh picked salad. In preparation for this I had gone to FoodShare to request a Good Food Box with salad things to go with the children's lettuce. It isn't the usual thing that they would do, but they found some good things for the kids to eat raw, that we could serve to them with their salad.

I was more at ease this time around to speak with the children. I told them that I was impressed with the way that they had planted their lettuce and that it was growing well. I thanked them again for the flowers that they had planted in the front flower bed, and said I was sorry that the pumpkins they planted didn't make it. but on the bright side, i told them that I planted some more pumpkins and squash in the same area, and they can check back in the fall to see them.

I had four scissors, and four gardeners, so I divided the group of children into four. With a teacher or parent and about 10 kids each, we each took our group around the garden to see how things had grown and discover the new things that were put in. In my group I showed them the dill and fennel and let them have a nibble here and there of the things that were growing. To end the tour, we came to the herb garden were the lettuce was planted. the children lined up and I handed them each a leaf of the lettuce, we went over to the water and washed off the bits of dirt that had splashed up on to the leaves from all the rain. With out any dressing, just plain we ate our lettuce leaf there on the spot! Each child ate their leaf all up.

Here are the same five lettuce plants. the first picture was taken May 19th, and the second one was taken June 19th. We also planted some nasturtium seeds on May 19th.

The Children had a bit of free time while the teachers and other gardeners work at setting the table and the finishing touches on the salad, adding the fresh picked lettuce leaves. I took a few minutes to say good bye to Pam, who was glad to have seen the kids in action.

Then it was time to serve the salad. the children had worked up their appetites walking around and talking about all the vegetables that we can grow in the garden!

It was a very satisfying sight to see the forty children, along with the parents and teachers, gathered around our picnic tables to have this meal.

After the meal there was one more thing to talk about. So we walked over to the blue tarp again, and after hearing about the things the children had enjoyed about their visit, they had a treat for us. They had practiced singing the Garden Song (also know as Inch by Inch, Row by Row)

That was very sweet, and a great way to finish off the garden visits for the year. We look forward to the fall, and hope the children come back to see how the garden has grown even more.

At this point, I took a small break, before I had to get ready for our next visitors.