A Smaller Group, but Just as Much Garden Exploration!

by Breanne Bartok

This week’s Farm Camp saw a smaller group than past weeks, with four campers getting the Outback Farm all to themselves! However, what they may have lacked in numbers, they certainly made up for in enthusiasm. 

We started each day off with a story. Watching the enraptured faces of the campers hanging on every word was as exciting as the actual tale of “How Groundhog’s Garden Grew,” “Sylvia’s Spinach,” and “These Bees Count.” The last story helped the warier campers warm up to the idea of getting a tad bit closer to the bees and learning about how they make honey. Michael, our very own Beeman, did a wonderful job explaining the process without even needing to look at the hives, letting us all touch some of the honeycomb, and handing out samples of honey from this year and from last year’s harvest. The children did a taste test, and while they may not have noticed the more subtle differences between floral and smoky, they could certainly notice how different the two samples looked and tasted! Some were surprised that the honey collected straight from the bees here at the Outback looked the same as the honey in the store. Others were shocked that honeys could taste so different! And all of them came up with very thought-provoking questions when we walked over to look at the hives – from observing and wondering why rocks were put on top of the hives (to keep raccoons out) to wondering why there was a layer of mesh over the hives’ entrances (to serve as a maze through which only the bees of that specific hive could navigate, preventing “robber bees” from entering!) We finished up our Pollinator Day with Honey Seed Balls, a concoction with enough crunchy seeds and cocoa powder to get them excited to lick, bite, and get messy! 

Grownups joined us for lunch on Thursday. We made Zucchini Linguini, preparing a rainbow of colors from a number of Common Threads school gardens. We noticed that some squash was bumpy and some squash was smooth, but they all turned out rather smooth and slimy once we’d peeled it down to the seeds! The peels, the hand-ground pesto, and some edible flowers from the garden made for a colorfully tasty end of the week!