Green Thumbs Abound

This year’s garden was amazing!  We experimented with more of a cottage style garden with a little white pebble path meandering through, tiny white picket borders, a wooden bench to reflect and meditate on, and a couple of bird feeders to encourage wildlife to visit.  We tried to place some perennials, especially fragrant herbs, hidden among the veggies and sunflowers so we can enjoy everlasting plants year after year.  The kids have done a wonderful job weeding and enjoying the blooms.  What a delight!

Teacher Lisa loves sunflowers and many of the bright happy blooms are from her previous season’s harvest.  The kids started them inside last spring and boy did they take off!  One day the “mini gardeners” started noticing baby sunflowers sprouting up all over underneath the bird feeder.  We delighted in the thought that the birds helped to plant our garden as they accidentally dropped their breakfast.

Part of a Montessori education is to assist children with developing a love and understanding of nature and botany.   Our kids love the garden because it gives them hands on experience and a sense of ownership of their environment.  “Don’t hurt nature!” is often a phrase heard echoed amongst the children and is applied to the smallest crawly creatures.  One day, while weeding, a child asked, “If we are pulling weeds out, isn’t that killing nature?”  I had to smile to myself because they were right.

There are all kinds of treasures to find in the foliage.  I think these little ones have discovered some sun ripened strawberries.  Yummy… sweet!

Taking a moment to smell the roses and pick some tomatoes.

A cozy place for a bird to dwell among the sugar peas.  We planted the climbers along the fence by the parking lot so Teacher Kate could pick the crunchy pods (her favorite) on the way to her car.

The harvest this year gave us a bounty of sweet tomatoes, huge cucumbers, peas, lettuce, and strawberries.  One day for snack the kids were offered a choice between a store-bought veggie and our homegrown tomatoes.  Guess what most of them chose… no one can pass up freshly picked tomatoes. It will be fun to see what comes out of the NTMC farm next year.