Lettuce Eats Bunny Poop

Any parent knows that fairness is a big deal to kids. How many times have you heard them say, "It's not fair!" or "I always have to do it! Why can't she do it!" For once, Child Development experts agree with parents: fairness and justice are really important to kids.

Among those Child Development experts are planners and managers of children's gardens. A consistent piece of advice they give is "Let each child have their own garden space, and keep those spaces very small."

Their reasoning is that children are often overwhelmed by large garden beds and have a difficult time feeling ownership of commonly used space. Large space don't allow them to measure progress, and it is difficult for them to take pride--or to complete assignments--when "everyone" is responsible for everything.

That's why we've taken the approach--shown above--of making very small raised beds that can be assigned individually to kid gardeners. Each child will have one or two distinct spaces in which to grow plants or flowers, and because the spaces are small, they won't feel overwhelmed by planting, weeding, watering, and fertilizing.

You might recognize the blue rings that make up some of our raised beds. Yes, these are made from the blue barrels that a kind and generous soul donated to the community garden two years ago. Initially, our plan was to collect rain water off the roof (still a great plan!) but we weren't smart enough to figure out all of the necessary piping and connections and the barrels weren't used for the planned purpose. And last year, well, there just wasn't any rain.

Yet, how lucky we are to have these barrels! They make great raised beds that are exactly the size that Child Development experts say are appropriate for children under age 8. And, we'll be able to set up drip irrigation that confines and conserves water in each blue raised bed. We feel really blessed that we're able to use everything that folks are generous enough to donate.

Pictured above is a load of wood chip mulch that we'll put down on the children's garden as soon as the raised beds are in place. Many thanks to Bill Hudspeth for arranging for Carroll Electric to deliver the mulch!

Next week we'll be constructing some larger raised beds for older children, then we'll lay down the mulch in trenched pathways. Finally, we'll start putting up the picket fence surrounding the garden.

Oh, about that bunny poop: a good friend donated 10 gallons of rabbit manure for the children's garden. We think that, when the kids start planting they'll learn a good lesson about the fact that plants that we eat have to eat too. What better way for them to learn than by applying the rabbit manure on their own raised bed?