Week 3 Update - Mr. Braden’s Builders

As we always do, our day began with games, setting our intentions, sitting with nature, and sharing our gratitudes.  Then we discussed our day as we ate our snack and made sure that everyone got some water in their system to go with their snacks.

This morning we talked about what plants can do outside of foods, their propensity for medicine, dyes, fibers, and plenty of other options.  How they help local wildlife, how we can serve them, and how they can serve us.  We then went to propagate some local all-stars in our yarrow and rosemary plants.  We had plenty of yarrow to harvest but our rosemary was harder to find.  We went through this process by taking cuttings and then placing them in individual 4” pots with potting soil.  I have to say that the kids organized an excellent assembly line to do this as we potted over 50 plants.  We know that they won’t all make it but we will see what happens as time goes on!

In the afternoon we started an experiment with compost.  We took a bucket that had some soil, some food scraps, some paper scraps, and even a few nails.  We blew some air into the bucket and then sealed it.  Now we wait to see how this process works moving forward.  We discussed why we compost and what a “nutrient cycle” is.  The idea being that the farm produces nutrients and also needs nutrients, and that composting lets us keep those nutrients and return them to the soil.  If we lose all the nutrients we create, our space is constantly losing an important and necessary resource for soil health.  So we compost to save what we can.