Make a garden grow? Use "manure tea"

Allison Gowen

Kids in the Spoede School Garden Club sprinkle their crops with homemade fertilizer. It's made by putting manure into a sack and soak it in a tub of water. They call it "manure tea."

But, 10-year-old Allison Gowen thinks she has a better name. She calls it "poop soup."

The thick, dark colored liquid with bits of stuff floating in it certainly looks more like soup than a cup of tea.

Regardless of what you call it, the fertilizer is one of the things kids are using to grow vegetables in the club's garden. The Spoede club is one of five school gardening groups that are at work this summer.

The Kemper Center's Youth Gardening Program is backed by the Missouri Botanical Garden and the University of Missouri-St. Louis' Outreach program. The sponsors want to provide kids with "hands-on field learning."

Veronica Benduski and her younger sister, Martha

About 20 kids are in each school's gardening club. The groups are at five elementary schools in St. Louis County. The schools are Spoede, Reed, Old Bonhomme, Hudson and the Clayton Child Center.

(If you or your family would like to learn more about home gardening, visit the Botanical Garden's website at www.mobot.org. Then click on the Kemper Center logo.)

(Another good local gardening resource is Gateway Greening. It helps groups or individuals set up community gardens. They can be contacted at 314-577-9484.)

The Spoede club members aren't all from Spoede Elementary. There are also kids from nearby parochial schools as well as some who are home schooled.

Nine-year-old Veronica Benduski said she likes all but one thing in gardening. "I really don't like to make manure tea," she said.

Miles Taylor

Ten-year-old Miles Taylor said the only thing he doesn't like about gardening is bugs. "They are really annoying," he said.

But, for the most part, the kids are really into gardening, even weeding.

Many of the kids in the Spoede club also help with gardens at their homes.

Allison Gowen is a 5th grader at St. Clement of Rome Catholic School. Her mother, Jan, helps with the Spoede club. Mrs. Gowen recently earned a "master gardener" rating from the Botanical Garden.

Allison said their home garden is filled with flowers. "We have a very big bed of flowers in our backyard," she said.

"I like the roses the best. We started the rose bed with black dirt and then covered it with mulch," she said. She said she gets down on her hands and knees to help with the weeding.

Anna Buchanon ladles "manure tea" into jugs

She said her favorite class in school is science. She said one subject this year was plants.

Miles Taylor goes to Spoede School. He said his garden at home is in the side yard. It's a combination of flowers and tall grasses. "We've also got an evergreen tree," he said.

He said his favorite flowers are zinnias because "they're pretty and colorful."

Miles said he likes "messing around in the dirt" of the garden. He said the way he tells which plants are weeds is by size. He said they buy garden plants that have already been growing in little pots before put in the garden.

When pulling weeds, "I know the weeds are the smaller plants," he said.

He said putting mulch on the garden also helps to keep the weeds down.

Veronica Benduski also is a student at Spoede School. She said her family has both flowers and vegetables in home gardens.

"We have a garden by the front door that has flowers," she said.

Their vegetable garden has a variety of plants. Her favorite is radishes. "I like them in salads and then in sandwiches," she said.

But, this year, she said they are having trouble with their radishes. "The bunnies are eating them," she said. Other favorites are onions and broccoli "kind of."

Both Allison and Veronica think they'd like to work with animals when they grow up. Allison said, "I want to be a veterinarian." At home, she's got 21 fish, three turtles and four cats for pets.

Veronica said, "I like horses a lot." She'd like to work in stables when she's bigger.