Spring has sprung, and the Elmira and District Horticultural Society wants kids to dig in the dirt and grow plants, and their knowledge.
Irene Dickau is in charge of the Junior Gardening Club, starting up on May 11, and she invites kids age seven to 10 to get involved and sow some seeds. There are some new activities for this year’s gardening club.
“Most of the kids get excited about it. Since I have had the group for four years, I have been trying to do more active gardening as opposed to sitting at a table and doing record keeping,” she said. The kids want to move. They want to get their hands dirty. We have two themes this year, which are pollinators, the bees and butterflies. We have some milkweed planted for the monarchs, and the other theme is soil nutrients, the kinds of soil. And compost. We have composters there, but we want to use them more.”
The group will be growing plenty of vegetables, herbs and flowers this year, and will be enjoying the fruits of their labour when the vegetables are ready to harvest.
“We have our salad supper, where they get to eat all of their hard work,” she shared, adding that there is a large variety of plants going in the ground thanks to efforts of the junior club members.
“We grow herbs. They choose that and that is more or less a teaching thing. Then they have to do a little bit of research on that. We also grow our vegetables. We have potatoes, carrots, different squash, beans, peas, and beets – easy stuff.”
Along with putting seeds in the ground, the members of the Junior Gardening Club will be tracking their plants’ growth and learning a few things along the way. There are a few things that gardening can teach a child, shared Dickau.
“Children learn better when doing. Gardening is multi-sensory: hear, smell, taste, see and feel. They develop social skills and friendships through conversations and sharing,” she said, adding that the members will also have a new appreciation for where their food comes from, the beauty of plants, the usefulness of plants, and they develop skills that are useful later in life. A developed gardening skill can also be therapeutic in nature.
Dickau also had a few tips for those who want to start their own gardens at home. Working with herbs, some are easier than others.
“Dill grows easily, and parsley. Parsley can be harder to grow from seed, but if you get a starter plant, it will grow,” she said. “Chives are good too. They come up every year on their own. Sage is good too. If you get a good grow, it will come up for several years until it gets very woody and then just discard it and start another one.”
The Junior Gardening Club only has room for 10 members, and Dickau says she already has four signed up. The first meeting is on May 11 from 7 – 8:30 p.m. at the junior gardening plot behind the Woolwich Youth Soccer Building. Registration is $15, and the group meets every Wednesday evening until harvest time in the fall. She notes that proper attire is required for the job – clothes and shoes that kids and parents aren’t afraid to get dirty.
For more information, call Dickau at 519-669-3244.
