Sunday School highlight - How will my garden grow - Transformation

The beginning of the month we started a new theme, Transformation.Two of our classes for children follows the monthly themes and for this week I would like to highlight one of those classes.  For the Kindergarten through 3rd grade Theme Explorations class we thought we would start with how a seed transforms into a seedling. Then, at the end of the month, we would observe how our garden transformed.

This part was actually quite fun to see. The children of this class had planted seeds of several plant varieties in  March. The children had taken some plants home to grow, but several trays of plants had been set aside for the garden at WES. They hadn't seen the plant trays since planting the seeds.  For this Sunday they saw their "seeds" again. This time as fully sprouted plants. One boy exclaimed upon seeing the trays, "I know what these are! These are the seeds we planted!"  Another boy, upon closely examining a tray of marigolds, "Hey, I planted this tray! I know it has to be my tray because I accidentally planted two tomato seeds and now I see there are two tomato plants with all these marigolds!" It was so wonderful to see their excitement and ownership of these plants.

We observed that some seeds hadn't sprouted at all. We noted that some plants had shriveled, but by and large, we had a tray full of seedlings ready for the garden.

This garden is primarily taken care of by the Scholten-Reddy family and  students assist through weeding, planting and harvesting. All food grown in the tiny garden is then brought to Shepherd's Table, a non-profit organization that serves the homeless. Last year that tiny garden produced more than 100 pounds of tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, chard, parsley, basil, and more.

So far our students have cleared the weeds, cut back some bushes, and transplanted a few perennials (two weeks ago) and this week, the K-3rd class transplanted their seedlings, moved some volunteer cucumber plants, and planted a few other seeds directly into the ground.

There is just something about working in the garden. There is joy, enthusiasm, and hope in spring planting. What will be? Will my plant grow? How will it transform?