Plant a "Garden Friends" Themed Garden for Kids

Gardening with children is rewarding for adults and children alike. It can teach important science principles such as life cycles, botany, wildlife habitats, food webs and ecosystems. It is also full of character-building life lessons like a sense of place and responsibility, sustainability and self-sufficiency. 

Planning and growing a themed garden is a great way to get children excited about their plants. In the past we have explored growing a Pizza or Taco garden, growing an Alphabet garden and growing a Rainbow or Pollinator garden. This time around we are going to give you some inspiration for a "Garden Friends" themed garden, otherwise known as companion planting.

This post contains affiliate links meaning I make a small commission from purchases made from these links at no additional cost to you. See disclosures for more information.  

We are also excited to be hosting a Renee's Garden seed giveaway. If you aren’t already familiar with Renee’s Garden seeds, I highly recommend exploring their offerings as you plan your garden. I love all of the unique varieties. With unusual heirlooms and plants that thrive in containers and small spaces they offer many good choices for a small home garden or school garden.

You will find details and the giveaway entry form at the bottom of this post.

Garden Friends: What is Companion Planting?

Companion planting is the concept of growing plants that compliment each other or are helpful to one another together. For example, planting something that grows tall, like peas on a trellis, where they can shade a friend that needs cooler conditions like lettuce from the mid-day sun. 

Plants can be friends because one repels or traps insect pests that are damaging to another. Planting basil around tomato plants can deter tomato pests. Planting flowers like nasturtium act as attractive insect traps. 

Plant friends can be those that do not compete for the same nutrients in the soil. Radishes that grow quickly and grow to shallow depths can be grown with carrots that grow deeper in the soil.  

 

The Three Sisters

An ancient method of companion planting comes from the Native Americans. Originating in North America around 3,000 years ago, corn, beans and squash were some of the first garden friends. Each plant has features that are beneficial to the others. 

Corn provides support as it grows tall and strong like a trellis. Beans add nitrogen to the soil and can climb the corn stalks. Squash is planted at the base to protect the beans and corn. The large squash leaves help provide shade and hold moisture in the ground. The shading of the squash can help prevent weed growth. Prickly squash stems can deter pests.

The Three Sisters garden is magical as it is like its own self-sustaining ecosystem. You can tell the native story of the Three Sisters to your students or children to inspire the planting of these three crops together. Scroll through this post to read the story and learn how to plant your three sisters garden.

 

Learn how you can win a pack of Native American Three Sisters Seeds at the end of this post! This big bonus pack of seeds from Renee's Garden Seeds includes Earth Tones Indian Dent Corn, Rattlesnake Bean and Sugar Pie Pumpkin seeds. 

Kids Gardening has Three Sisters lesson plans available when you sign up for their newsletter (which I highly recommend!) You can find the Three Sisters Lesson plan resource here. 

Pairs of Garden Friends to Plant

Here are some plant pairings that make good garden friends. Some of these are based on science, some based on folklore, but all make beautiful and tasty gardens! 

 

Cucumbers and Nasturtium- Grow cucumbers up a trellis with nasturtium down below to repel and trap pests. Nasturtium flowers are pretty and edible. They taste a bit like a radish.

Potatoes and Garlic- Garlic helps to keep away pests! 

Broccoli and Oregano- the Oregano serves as an insecticide

Carrots and Chives- Chives improve carrot growth and flavor as well as well as deterring pests

Lettuce and Radishes- radishes trap insect pests

Peas and Alyssum- Alyssum helps to bring in beneficial pollinators

Melons or Squash and Dill- Dill flowers attract beneficial insects

Tomatoes and Basil- Basil repels some pests, including helping to prevent tomato hornworm.

 

The list could go on and on! Check out the Farmers Almanac for an extensive list of good garden friends.

 

Garden Planning

Gardening with kids can be such a blast. My friend Christina at Little Sprouts Learning is a master at gardening with children. You can grab her helpful garden planner here as well as some other helpful resources for kids.

 

There is more to gardening than just the plants and seeds! Kids love to decorate garden markers and using them helps them to learn their plants. Kids can design their own with these blank bamboo garden markers. These 3-D printed garden markers are so colorful and these bright vegetable shaped markers would be great for a kid's themed garden. 

You might also want to invest in a sturdy kid-sized set of garden tools like this for digging and exploring throughout the growing season. 

Win a Native American Three Sisters Garden Seed Pack!

 

Enter below to win a Native American Three Sisters Garden Seed Pack from Renee's Garden Seeds. This giveaway starts March 23rd, 2024 and ends at midnight March 29th, 2024. The winner will be announced in our newsletter, listed on this post and notified by e-mail once the giveaway has ended. 

 

Must be a United States resident to enter, for further terms and conditions see Rafflecopter box below.

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

DIY Seed Germination Jar: A Must-Have for Your Plant Unit!

Seed germination is one of nature's little wonders. Giving your kids and students the opportunity to grow a plant of their own can be a magical experience. Unfortunately, we most often stick the seeds in some soil where we cannot see what happens as the seed becomes a tiny sprout. You can easily solve this problem by building a germination jar so that kids can see the entire process in action!

Building the germination jar is easy, and it is the perfect addition to your plant unit at school or in your home-school. This inquiry-based science activity is linked to K-2 Next Generation Science Standards and offers an extension idea to align with Common Core English and Language Arts standards as well. Paired with a wonderful children's book, you'll definitely want to add this to your spring to-do list for school or home!

This post contains affiliate links, meaning I will receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) if you make a purchase after clicking a product link. Please see disclosures page for more details.
 

Growing "One Bean"

There are so many science lessons and life lessons learned when children grow something themselves. You can make this activity a part of a science unit on life cycles or just an introduction to gardening with children.

First, we read One Bean, a sweet picture book by Anne Rockwell. In this story a boy plants a bean seed and watches it grow. Although told in a narrative style, anyone could follow the process of growing a bean seed themselves along with the story.




The boy puts the bean in a damp paper towel to prepare it for planting. Once it is wrinkled, he plants it in some soil and waits for his seed to sprout. This is where most planting projects become mysterious! The beauty of your germination jar is that you'll be able to watch the process unfold.

Build a Germination Jar 

To build your seed viewer, or germination jar, you'll only need a few supplies:

• clear smooth-sided glass or jar
• seeds (we had great success with fava beans!)
• clear water beads
• water

Water beads are pretty amazing! You only need a few at a time, and you can dry them out and reuse them for other projects.(They would be great to study absorption as well, as they soak up that water and grow to be 100's of times their original size.)

There are many ways to germinate a seed by keeping it moist, including wrapping in a damp paper towel like in the bean story we read. However, I like that by using the water beads, you do not have to cover the top of the jar up with plastic wrap or something else to hold the moisture in. I have used that method many times to teach children about plants. It works, but it can also lead to mold growing because it sometimes stays too wet.

You will have to experiment with how many water beads and how much water to use. The jar we began with ended up being far too large, so eventually we moved our experiment to a smaller glass. Start by using just a few water beads- a tablespoon of them can go a long way. Pour a bit of water on and let them absorb it for a couple of hours before adding anything else.

You want your jar to be moist, but not too wet. You will need enough water beads to hold your seed in place, but not so many that there is no room to grow. This is the experiment within the experiment!

Watch a Seed Germinate

Before you start, soak your bean seed(s) in a glass of water over night. This really helps to get them off to a quick start. We chose fava beans because they are easy for small hands to hold and are large so you can really see what is going on with them.

Once you've soaked your seed and prepared your water beads, place the bean seed so that it is close to the side of the glass and easy to view. Be sure that there are water beads over the top of the seed so that it stays moist.

Then, you wait! Until the seed begins to germinate, you might want to give the jar a little more water each day, carefully pouring it around the outside of the jar where the seeds are. Within a day or so, you should begin to see that first part of the sprout, the radicle, emerging from the seed.

Keep an eye on your jar. If your water beads seem to be shrinking, add just a bit more water. Once you have a green sprout, you can choose whether to leave the seed in the water beads, or plant it in some soil. If you plan on trying to keep your plant growing to maturity, I'd suggest planting it before too long.

If you are lucky enough to have garden space, then that is the obvious place to grow your beans, but for those with space at a premium, particularly schools, I would suggest investigating growing a pocket garden on a wall. Here is one example of a pocket planter.
 

Meet Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards

This seed investigation will work towards meeting these Next Generation Science Standards for K-2.
NGSS K-LS1-1
NGSS K-ESS3-1
NGSS 2-LS4-1

You can also work towards these K-2 Common Core English and Language Arts Standards by creating an observation journal that includes words as well as drawings.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.K.3
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.3
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.2.3

More Plant Science Investigations! 

Learning with plants can continue throughout the spring and summer seasons. It is a great way to investigate biology concepts like pollination with elementary students.

One of my favorite experimental plant projects is growing an avocado plant from its pit.

Try growing a themed garden with kids. Some theme ideas are: an alphabet garden, a rainbow garden, a taco garden, or a pizza garden, or a garden friends companion garden. 

Explore math and science with sunflowers, and learn the parts of the flower with students in preschool all the way through High School by doing a flower dissection. 

Storybook Science Series

This activity is part of the Storybook Science series. You can find more great book-linked science activities in this series on the Inspiration Laboratories blog.  

You'll also want to visit my Storybook Science posts from past years:

• The Dandelion Seed: Design a Seed Engineering Challenge 
• "Here Comes the Garbage Barge" Inspired Landfill Model

Grow an Alphabet Themed Kid's Garden!

A is for Aster and B is for Basil. Can you grow an alphabet in your garden? Here are some ideas for a themed children's garden for school or home.

Why not incorporate some literacy into your garden planning this year? Gardening already has so much potential for science and life lessons. This will be the third year we've shared an idea for a themed children's garden along with a seed giveaway. We're so excited to be able to do it again. No matter how you get gardening with kids, we believe it will be a rewarding experience.  

This post contains affiliate links, meaning I earn a small commission from purchases made from these links at no additional cost to you. Please see disclosures for more information.
 

 

Grow An Alphabet Themed Garden

For those of you with lots of space, you might be ambitious enough to try a garden with every letter of the alphabet. If you are starting seeds in the classroom, you could have each student take on a different letter. Or you could pick and choose from a few letters of the alphabet.

Here are some fruit/vegetable and flower ideas to get you started (please note: depending on where you live these may or may not be good choices for your garden, do your homework!):

A- Arugula, Aster
B- Beans, Bee Balm (Monarda)
C- Carrots, Cosmos
D- Dill, Daisy
E- Eggplant, Echinacea
F- Fennel, Forget-me-not
G- Gourds, Geranium 
H- Honeydew melon, Hollyhock
I- Iceberg lettuce, Impatiens 
J- Jerusalem artichoke, Johnny Jump Up
K- Kale
L- Lettuce, Lupine
M- Musk melon, Marigold
N- Napa cabbage, Nasturtium
O- Okra, Oenothera biennis (common evening primrose)
P- Peas, Petunias
Q- Quince, Queen Anne's Lace
R- Radish, Rose
S- Spinach, Sunflower
T- Tomato, Tulips
U- Upland Cress, Ursinia
V- Verbena, Viola
W- Watermelon, Wallflower
X- Xeranthemum
Y- Yarrow
Z- Zucchini, Zinnia (find out how to win some Zinnia seeds below!)

Grow a Kid's Name Garden

Spell out a name with garden plants. If I did mine I might plant Spinach, Artichokes, Radishes, Arugula, and Honeydew to spell out SARAH. You could certainly get creative and use the common names or specific variety names to spell out just about anything you wanted. Make some cute garden markers to go along with your name garden.

Looking for other themed garden ideas? Grow a butterfly or rainbow garden. Try growing a taco or pizza garden!

Seed Giveaway!

Now for some fun. We are very excited to have Renee's Garden provide us with seeds for our third annual garden seed giveaway. I love to use Renee's Garden seeds as they are certified organic and you can find interesting varieties of heirloom plants and unique seeds that can be grown on trellises or in containers. You're sure to find plants you don't see elsewhere when you shop their seeds!

We'll get you started on your alphabet garden adventure with some heirloom "State Fair Gold Medal" and "Cut and Come Again" Zinnia seeds from Renee's Garden seed company. 8 winners will receive two packets each of these zinnia varieties (for a total of 4 seed packets per winner). Enter in the Rafflecopter box below. We'll notify winners by e-mail, so be sure the one you've given Rafflecopter is the best way to reach you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclaimer: Renee's Garden seeds donated all prizes for this giveaway, and I am a member of their affiliate program, but I was not otherwise compensated by Renee's Garden to write this post.

Gardening with Children: Science Lessons, Life Lessons

Let me let you in on a little secret (that is probably not that much of a secret to some Share it! Science readers) gardening with children is magic. Particularly when gardening with little ones who are still learning the wonders of the world.

 

This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I will earn a small commission through purchases made from these links at no additional cost to you. See disclosures for more information. 

 

A school garden, planted by little hands!

The past two springs we have had the good fortune of giving away seed packets, generously donated by Renee's Garden Seeds, to Share it! Science News readers. Two of this year's winners recently touched base with me about their gardening experience. They both echoed similar sentiments: growing their seeds into plants was not without trials and tribulations, but there were many teachable moments and little rewards along the way.

Deb T. a preschool educator from Michigan shared:

Our garden was less than successful product wise.  We were fighting near drought conditions, chipmunks, a new flock of chickens who eat more of our green stuff than we anticipated, and we are now fighting squash bugs.  On the good side we were able to watch a praying mantis eat those bugs for an afternoon snack!  We were so appreciative of the gift of seeds.  We started some plants from seed that we would normally buy as plants.  And we are still anxiously awaiting some bell peppers from the plants we were able to save from the chipmunk.

Thank you for the gift:) -Deb T.

The peppers Deb mentions above, from Renee's Garden Seeds.

I can think of many times I had similar experiences in my school garden. When you plant a seed you must contend with many factors, like predators and weather, that are out of your control. I'm so glad that despite the challenge, Deb was able to find the teachable moments to share with her students. I love that they were able to observe the praying mantis in the food chain they created in the garden.

Science lesson? A plant is one part of a food chain. This food chain is part of an even larger food web.

Life lesson? When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. There is always a silver lining!

An unexpected teachable moment- a praying mantis munches on the bugs that are munching on the squash plants!

Tina E. a Mom from Texas wrote: 

Hi Sarah,
My 5 year old son and I planted our seeds and watched them sprout but unfortunately I placed them in the Texas sun too early and they died. He was so sad but I still have a few more seeds that we will plant in early spring next year. The experience with him was awesome. Thank you for the seeds that brought us both experience and education that we will never forget.

We had a great time planting them and checking on them daily with a lot of enthusiasm, talking about them and watering/spritzing them. 

Sarah, I did not realize the harshness of the sun until I placed the sprouted plants outside to get a little sun, in about half-hour they were wilted and even the ones that were not fried by the heat of the sun eventually died within two days. This was also a great learning experience too. Failing is learning because now we know what not to do. 

We are looking forward to another year of growing our plants.

-Tina E.

Tina's son plants his Renee's Garden Seeds.

I love Tina's story of growing seeds with her son. Although they weren't as successful as they hoped, a new interest was sparked in a young child. Despite the fact the seedlings did not grow to maturity, her son is still anxious to try again next year. They learned what to do and what not to do through the experience.

Tina's son's seedlings.

I've certainly cooked seedlings, accidentally leaving them closed up in the cold frame on that first really warm sunny day of spring. Although it is disappointing, it only makes you want to try to grow them again!

Science lesson? A seed will germinate given soil, water, air and light.

Life lesson? If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!

In addition to my seed giveaway winners, I checked in with other colleagues who garden with kids.

Kassia, an Environmental Educator at IslandWood in Washington shared:

Hi Sarah!

I did quite a bit in the garden this summer with IslandWood summer camps. I taught three weeks of 4-5 year olds, and one week of 6-7 year olds. We mostly accessed science in the garden through the study of pollinators. One week, we focused on super powers of the natural world. The week began with an examination of flowers, and a discussion of their incredible abilities to make fruits and produce seeds. In IslandWood team building fashion, students then learned that the flower super powers were augmented by other natural superheroes: honey bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. Students learned about the inner-workings of a hive, differences between moths and butterflies, and made feeders for hummingbirds. Curricula on hummingbirds is sorely lacking, and this was the toughest day to teach. I designed an easy to make hummingbird feeder, and had kids carry around guide books looking for hummingbirds in the garden--this ended up being the most popular day!

Best,

Kassia

I love that this program used the idea of super powers to make learning magic for the campers. Seeing how flowers, and ultimately the food we eat, are dependent on pollinators is such an important lesson for kids.

Science lesson? The many parts of the garden ecosystem work in sync with one another. Each organism has a job and a special niche.

Life lesson? It takes many different types of organisms with different strengths to make ecosystems, and societies, run smoothly. We are deeply connected to the natural world. 

Christina from Little Sprouts Learning Garden in Oklahoma shared with our gardening with kids group:

This morning we ground the wheat the kids grew in the garden and made it into bread. It was so fun seeing them realize we could either eat the seeds or replant them. They learn so much from growing their own food!

Yum! Homemade bread! photo courtesy of Little Sprouts Learning

I think it is so awesome that these kiddos got to see this whole process from start to finish! So often in our society the middle-man has taken care of the jobs like harvesting and grinding the wheat to make our bread. What a gift to have this experience!

Science lesson? The "flowers" of grasses look different than other flowers. The top part of the wheat is the seed producing flower. 

Life lesson? Most of the time it is worth it to do something the "old-fashioned" way. 

Are you inspired to try to grow something with a child next spring? Follow my garden Pinterest board for some inspiration!

Secrets of the Garden: A Food Chain Activity

I'm so excited to be a guest blogger today for Rainy Day Mum's Storybook Summer Series 2016.

Check out my post: "Secrets of the Garden: A Food Chain Activity". Then explore the other great books and activities in the series!

Don't miss another Share it! Science News post! Activities, lesson ideas and science news. Subscribe by e-mail. We'll never send you any spam, pinkie swear!

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Grow a Taco or Pizza Garden with Kids

Growing plants with children has so many benefits- learning plant life cycles, learning where food comes from, and of course learning some responsibility along the way! Growing a kid's theme garden can really connect children with their garden patch. 

Last year, we explored growing Rainbow and Pollinator gardens. This year we will investigate themed vegetable gardens: a Taco garden and a Pizza garden!

 

This post contains affiliate links meaning I receive a small commission from purchases made from these links at no additional cost to you. Please see disclosures for more information.

Growing a Taco Garden

You can get started growing a taco garden in pots, a small garden bed or in a portion of a larger garden. 

 

Garden Peppers! ©SBF 2015

 

What can you grow in a taco garden? There are a wide variety of tomatoes and peppers to start. 

 

You might also want to try herbs like cilantro, or grow some scallions or onions. 

 

Lettuce is easy to direct sow into the garden and it isn't too difficult to keep your crop growing throughout the summer. 

• Tomatoes
• Peppers
• Cilantro
• Scallions
• Onions
• Lettuce

What other vegetables can you put on a taco? Get creative!

 

You can make some salsa right out of your garden with this kid's salsa recipe from Weelicious. 

 

Although growing corn and grinding it for your own tortillas might seem a little ambitious, this can definitely lead to an interesting discussion about where the other ingredients for a taco come from! 

 

You might also want to check out the picture book, So You Want to Grow a Taco? by Bridget Heos to explore the idea further.

If you are interested in growing your taco garden in pots, you might try some of the container tomatoe varieties from Renee's Garden such as: Heirloom Stupice or Super Bush.

 
Herbs are easy to grow on a patio or even indoors. For a taco garden you might try some cilantro, like this heirloom variety.
 

There are also many nice varieties of lettuce that can be grown directly in the garden, or in a container. I really like Sweetie Baby Romaine and Renee's Baby Leaf Blend.

 

Container lettuce. SBF 2015

Growing a Pizza Garden

Dutch oven pizza! SBF 2015

 

What is a pizza made of? What can you grow in your pizza garden? Tomatoes and oregano for sauce, basil, peppers and onions for toppings. If you have a large garden you probably have other items that would taste yummy on there, like eggplant, or even some fried zucchini! 

 

• Roma tomatoes (great for sauce!)
• Oregano
• Basil
• Peppers
• Onions
• Eggplant (this is my favorite container variety!)
• Zucchini

Basil SBF 2015

 

Just as you can grow many of your "taco plants" in the garden, or in pots, the same goes for your pizza toppings. Basil and oregano grow wonderfully in pots or out under and among the tomatoes in the garden. These herbs have the added benefit of keeping some tomato pests away!

You might try Italian Genovese or Large Leaf Cameo basil.

Tomatoes SBF 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roma tomatoes are great for making tomato sauce. Try this pizza sauce recipe with the kids.

 

For further learning and discussion about growing pizza ingredients, investigate So You Want to Grow a Pizza? by Bridget Heos.

To get you started with your taco or pizza garden, we're giving away 4 sets of 4 packages of Renee's Garden Seeds. Using the Rafflecopter box below you can enter to win some tomato, pepper and herb seeds for your garden. Later this summer, the winners will be asked to share how their gardens fared this year! The giveaway runs from April 5th, 2016- April 11th, 2016. Winners will be notified via e-mail and announced on the blog. Good luck and have fun gardening!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Composting with Worms! A Great Activity for School or Home

Today we’re joining forces once again with the Growing with Science blog to invite you to learn more about composting. We’ll focus on worm composting, or vermicomposting. Read on to find out how to build and maintain your own worm composting bin. This is an awesome way to learn about compost and decomposition at home or school. 

Hop on over to Growing with Science for some fun decomposition and compost critter activities. You’ll also want to check out this excellent children’s book list on composting and decomposition. 
 
Composting is an excellent activity for children. It’s not only a good environmental practice but there are so many lessons to be learned. How do nutrients get recycled? What is decomposition? What is the difference between insects and other arthropods? Why are worms so helpful?

This post contains affiliate links, meaning I will receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) if you make a purchase after clicking a product link. Please see disclosures page for more details.

The great thing about compost is that it can be accomplished on a small or large scale. For home gardens and classrooms small scale composting is easy to start and will keep kids engaged throughout the entire year. 

Worm composting is one excellent way to introduce children to the composting process. Maintaining a worm bin is simple, it creates little to no odor, and you will always have a supply of worms for some hands-on learning!

Building and Populating Your Worm Compost Bin

You can easily build your own worm bin, or you can purchase one. I inherited a Worm-A-Way bin filled with worms when I took on my teaching job.

It was an excellent little worm bin and we maintained worms in the classroom with this set-up successfully for 7 years. (When issues arose, it was my fault, which I will explain later!) 

Currently, this bin is unavailable through Amazon, but you can find many other alternatives like this one.

If you are interested in building your own bin, like this one that we keep in our basement at home, it is fairly simple.

Vermicomposting Bin. Yes! We have worms in our basement! ©SBF 2016

To build your own worm bin you will need: 

• A plastic storage bin with a lid
• Screening
• Drill, or something to poke ventilation holes
• Rubber stopper
• Shredded paper, or coconut fiber (coir)
• Red wiggler worms that can be purchased here or here (See more on the best worms for a bin below)

We purchased a plastic storage bin and drilled some holes towards the top for ventilation. We also covered our holes with some screening like this, as an extra precaution for worm escapes, but under good conditions worms won’t bother traveling.

Ventilation- worms need to breathe too! ©SBF 2016

Drainage is key! We drilled a hole towards the bottom of the bin to be able to drain liquid out of the composter if necessary. We plugged up the hole with a rubber stopper. In a household of 2 science teachers, finding a rubber stopper was easy, but if you don’t have this type of supply readily available, you can purchase them very inexpensively here. You can see that we weren’t happy with our first attempt, so we ended up creating a second hole.

Two attempts at an effective drainage hole. ©SBF 2016

Worm bins need to stay damp, but not too wet. This liquid is excellent fertilizer, and any that builds up in your bin needs to be drained out.

Your worms will need some bedding. We use shredded recycled paper or newspaper. If you do this, I recommend trying to avoid using paper with a lot of colors and dye on it. This is a great way to recycle all those pre-approved credit card deals you get in the mail! You can also use peat moss or coconut fiber (coir) as bedding.

Worms aren’t like us; they don’t have teeth to grind their food. Instead worms grind their food with the strong muscles in their gizzard. Your worms will need a bit of garden soil to provide some grit to help them grind their food. Once you have a well-established bin, they will find what they need there and you won’t need to add more soil.

Choosing Worms for the Worm Bin

Now the most important part: the worms! You can’t put just any old worm into your bin. Not all worms are suited for recycling waste and living in this situation. The best worms for small vermicomposting operations like yours are Eisenia fetida, otherwise known as the red wiggler. These are epigeic worms, meaning they live in decaying organic material, not soil.

Red wigglers! ©SBF 2016

Earthworms that you may find in the soil of your garden are endogeic worms. This means they spend most of their time in the soil among plant roots. Earthworms do not do well in the worm bin! Red wigglers are small worms. You can find them in nature in organic-rich areas like compost heaps and in cow pies. 

Don’t worry, if you are not inclined to harvest some worms from a cow pie, you can also purchase Eisenia fetida from many online retailers or home and garden stores. You can also get them online. Here is one reasonably priced option for live Eisenia fetida. You can also find composting worms on Amazon. 

If you know someone who has a healthy worm bin, you can also adopt some of their worms. Once your worm bin is chugging along, you’ll be able to return the favor. 

Please note: If you are looking to compost on a large scale, an outdoor compost bin will serve you better than a small worm composter. Vermicomposting in this sized bin is excellent for small batches of food scraps and for educational purposes.

Feeding Your Worms

So you’ve got the bin, and you’ve got the worms. Now what?

I’ve read many times that one pound of worms (about 1,000) can eat up to half a pound of food waste per day. I’ve never tried to count my worms, but even when my worm bin is at its healthiest, it cannot handle half a pound of food waste per day. Balance is key in this micro-ecosystem. The amount of food waste your bin can handle will vary based on a variety of factors.

©SBF 2016

Worms plow through food more quickly when it is in smaller pieces. Kitchen scraps work well. You most likely will find that you’ll need to experiment with your bin to find the right ratio of food to worms. Start with small amounts once a week, or every few days. Be patient until you find the balance.

You can feed your worms fruit and vegetable scraps, shredded paper, coffee grounds, eggshells, plain rice, pasta or bread. Avoid food scraps that have oils or dressings. Keep dairy products out of your worm bin, as well as meat or bones. Don’t feed them glossy or waxed paper. Never use your worm bin to decompose pet waste, as animal feces can contain harmful bacteria and parasites.

Troubleshooting the Worm Bin 

Worms are not difficult to keep alive, however, the conditions in your bin do need to stay balanced. As I have mentioned before, worms need to stay moist, but not too wet. Too much moisture is one of the biggest issues I have run into with vermicomposting.

Your worm bin should never have an unpleasant odor. If it does, it probably means that it is too wet or too much waste has built up. The one time my bin failed was because I did not take the time to empty it and refill with new bedding when I should have. When things went wrong, they went really wrong and the entire bin was a loss.

That said, this won’t happen to you as long as you pay attention to a few things. The first is that you are not overfeeding the worms. When you put food scraps into the bin, cover them with bedding. If those scraps are not gone the next time you go to put food in there, do not throw a lot more in. Once your worms grow in population, you’ll notice the food scraps will go more quickly and you will have a better idea of how much your bin can handle.

Our worm bin- in need of some new bedding, but otherwise happy! ©SBF 2016

If there is any build-up of liquid, simply drain the bin out and add some more bedding (shredded paper or newspaper). This excess moisture can cause worms to drown, food waste to spoil and other unpleasantness. Your bin should never have a foul smell. If it does, then this is most likely your problem.

If your worms begin to jump ship, you also have a problem. Happy worms will stay put where their food and bedding is. If you notice your worms crawling out, or staying high up on the walls of the bin the conditions are not right in there. Check to be sure that it is not too wet, and that it is not dried out in the bin. If wet, drain, and if dry add some bedding that is damp (not dripping!).

You might find over time that you have other critters in your bin. If you use thick bedding and only add scraps fresh from the kitchen (rather than outdoor plant material) you won’t have too many problems. Fruit flies and small white worms in the bin are harmless. If you find you have larger insects, you may want to clear the compost out of the bin (see how below) and add fresh bedding. Some insects can harm your worms.

Harvesting the Compost

When the bin begins to fill with worm castings it is time to harvest your black gold and use it on your garden and houseplants. 

Kids love to help with this process. I’ve had students sort through piles of vermicompost and gently put the worms back into the bin and keep the castings out. This does take a while, but if you are working in a classroom it can be a quick process.

If you plan ahead, you can make the bin cleaning process very easy. Scoop the contents of the bin to one side. Put fresh food and bedding on the empty side. The worms will begin to migrate to where the new food and bedding is. Within a week or two the worms will mostly be on the side with the bedding and you can scoop out the compost without losing too many of your wigglers.

What Can You Learn from Worms? 

It is always handy to have some worms available in your science classroom or for learning at home. Students can observe their locomotion and habits. They are useful in teaching how to be gentle and respectful of living things. Worms are excellent to introduce decomposition and how the Earth recycles nutrients.

If you scoop out some worms and compost you can challenge kids to make great observations. What do they see in the compost? What parts of the food waste are left behind while others quickly decompose? Can you find a worm egg?

Worm "eggs" or "cocoons". ©SBF 2016

In my experience, I’ve found the following books to be excellent teaching tools and resources:

Wiggling Worms at Work by Wendy Pfeffer This book outlines the importance of worms and the basics of their daily lives in beautiful paper collage illustrations. Excellent for elementary students!

Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin Kids love this book. It is a humorous fictional story, and gives ample opportunity for comparing a cartoon worms to real worms. I’ve also used it to create a reader’s theater activity for second graders.

Compost Critters by Bianca Lavies This picture book is laden with excellent photographs of the different organisms that work as decomposers. Once you’ve learned about worms, you’ll want to learn more about these other awesome critters as well!

Worms Eat Our Garbage: Classroom Activities for a Better Environment and Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System, both by Mary Appelhof. These are the quintessential guides to setting up a worm bin and using it as a teaching tool.

Vermicomposting and other Worm Resources:

• Science Books for Kids about Decomposition and Composting 
• Compost Science Projects for Kids 
• Worm Composting for Kids 
• National Institute of Health Sciences-Kid Pages (Vermicomposting)
• Worm related blog posts from Vermicomposting expert Amy Stewart 
• FREE Nature’s Recyclers Printable Coloring Book 

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