By Elaine McCarthy
During Summer Camp, we met at school and organized our first field trip to the garden. We walked to the bus stop and waited for bus #208.
We rode the bus three stops. We crossed at the crosswalk and picked up our wagons from Elaine’s pick-up. We put all our backpacks in the wagons and traveled one block to Hawthorne. Along the way, we watched a landscape company chipping branches into wood chips. It was loud, but the courageous preschoolers traveled on.
We entered the gardens and our curiosity led us to wondrous delights.
We tasted mint, grapes, and raspberries. We smelt sage, chamomile and various flowers.
We measured our banana squashes to 18 and 21 inches.
We searched through the green leafy foliage and found zucchini, summer squash, butternut squash, chard, carrots, basil, beans and lettuce.
We took out our drawing boards and drew vegetables and recipes we could make.
Graham drew pumpkin soup, Menkyi drew stir fry with peppers, eggplant, and squash. Wes drew salad with vegetables and Junior drew sunflower seeds for snack.
After our lunch break, we donned our garden gloves and gathered our tools, and we pulled out Milk Thistle, Blindweed and grass from around the garden plot.
Feeling satisfied with our big pile of weeds, we wandered through the community garden plots to spy the ladybugs, bees and butterflies. We looked for the goats, but couldn’t locate them. We found some fallen apples so we collected them to make apple sauce. We rested by the irrigation ditch and let ourselves cool off in the shade. Watching the flow of the water was soothing, and the cool temperature was refreshing.
The roving preschoolers then hopped into the wagons and we headed to check out the old farm equipment and Johnny’s Truck Farm. The pickup truck bed is filled with dirt and has vegetables and herbs growing in it. It was quite a surprise for us!
As our time neared the end, we went back to the pavilion and drank water and listened to the story, Growing Vegetable Soup by Loise Ehler. We reminisced all the elements of the story, seeds, tools, and plants that we saw that day.
What a delightful day!