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Dig This
Friday, May 5, 2000
By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Jennie Peterson gives young gardeners, from left, Jeffrey
Kwock, Reece Suchocki and Ian Suchocki some pointers.
Eight children sat on the floor listening to a fairly grimy Jennie Peterson, environmental educator at the Hawaii Nature Center, recap what they had learned that day. Keiki garden
lesson takes rootThe keiki were downright limp. Were they bored?
Questions about their day quickly brought first shy, then descriptive expressions of enthusiasm. They weren't bored, they were exhausted.
And no wonder. In the heat of the mid-day sun, a person could get tired just listening to all they had done -- dug in a compost pile, tilled up hard-packed earth, planted seeds, potted seedlings. In short, they built a garden.
Gardening For Keiki was a new class for Hawaii Nature Center and Peterson dubbed the day a success.
"We've had gardening classes for adults before and this is the first one we've had for children," she said.
The class was motivated by Peterson's own interest in gardening.She had a vegetable garden going for a while just outside her office. It was great to be able to walk out the door and make a lunch of fresh greens, said Peterson. She grew mizuna, arugula, herbs, tomatoes and stevia, which she described as "the funnest plant. It's a plant that has small white flowers that's an incredible sweetener," said Peterson. Stevia is easy to grow, she said, but it's hard to find seedlings.
Her garden had fallen into disrepair over the holidays, but she was motivated to whip it back into shape by scheduling the Gardening For Keiki class.
And she let the keiki do a lot of the work. "Our philosophy is to make it as hands-on as possible, as interactive as possible," said Peterson.
While she cleared the 4-foot by 20-foot box that housed the vegetable garden, she only tilled and replanted about half of it. The class got to compare the worked and unworked portions of the garden, then had to till the hard soil and plant seeds.
"They had to really work it, it was hard," said Peterson. "I think they're totally wasted."
But they attacked the job with enthusiasm, she said. "They were really into it, I was pleased."
Lynette Kwock brought her son Jeffrey, 9, and daughter Jennifer, 5, to the class.
"My son is really into gardening," she said.
They learned a lot about compost, which they had tried to produce in the past with limited success. Now they know what they were doing wrong, said Kwock.
Jeffrey enjoyed the composting lesson. "I mostly like looking through the compost pile and seeing all those bugs," he said.
And lest you think bugs are a guy thing, Segan Troupe was fascinated with the millipedes, potato bugs and albino cockroaches crawling through the compost pile.
"We had a garden once but it didn't work. Now we're going to try again," said Segan, who wants to grow fruit.
Her mother, Theresa Troupe, found out about the center through a school field trip and was excited about the programs. "I think it's great," she said. Though she disagreed with Segan about the attractiveness of millipedes. "It's a worm with legs," said Troupe.
Elizabeth Kooiman, who came with the Troupes, enjoyed the day overall, but expressed a preference for planting over digging.
Her grandmother does a lot of gardening, said Kooiman, and she'd like to help her now that she's tried it.
Peterson recommends food plants for parents and children embarking on a learning garden. Carrots, peas, tomatoes, herbs, radishes and lettuce all are easy to grow, said Peterson. "It's fun to pull a carrot out of the ground," she added.
Though Hawaii Nature Center has yet to schedule its next Gardening For Keiki class, it is offering Worm Wonder on May 14. While playing in the dirt, always a big hit, children will learn how worms help keep the soil healthy. For more information on it and other activities, call 955-0100.
Gardening Calendar in Do It Electric!
Stephanie Kendrick's gardening column runs Fridays in Today.
You can write her at the Star-Bulletin, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802
or email skendrick@starbulletin.com
