oceandweller - consider sheet mulching and starting off with transplants through the mulch. Make sure the mulch is weed free! Then apply more mulch after harvest. The spring garden will be much easier if you keep the weeds at bay with mulch. I volunteer at a summer camp nature center with a children's garden, so perhaps my experience has some helpful suggestions. The weeds were prolific last year and increased by mulch that contained weed seeds. Then in April we double dug it with llama manure because it is suppose to be weed free. Despite diligent frequent shallow scraping all during May the weed seeds were still sprouting. In June I altered my plans of an intermingled garden and planting seeds to rows along soaker hoses using landscape cloth over the top & planting through holes. After a few weeks we covered the cloth with spoiled hay from the bottom of the hay storage. I will remove landscape cloth after harvest and apply more mulch for an easier planting next year for our summer season. So far the kids are more attracted to our petting farm animals, but when the garden has filled out by midsummer it will be more interesting. I've planted a pizza garden with vegetables and herbs that are pizza ingredients, a winter squash jungle, a strawberry and tea garden with herbal tea plants, and a large teepee with bean & sunflower plants. Some kids look at it and just say oh and move on. Others have questions. Some want to kick or pick at leaves, so need to be closely supervised while near the garden. We don't have a plan for the kids actually maintaining the garden as they just visit for up to 50 minutes at a time as part of their rotation recreation schedule. In your situation you could have groups responsible for certain areas of the garden once you get it under control. Perhaps, your adult volunteers would supervise them organized into clubs for sections. Ownership of a crop or a section worked with my own children in our gardens. We had great strawberries when my daughter was in charge of a small planting. I was surprised how much my kids got into the composting at first wanting to turn it or bury scraps for worms in the worm bin. After awhile it was just a way of gardening and they didn't get excited it about it anymore. I learned to keep tasks simple and not jump from one thing to another out in the garden. They got thirsty or frightened by bees and would want to give up. It takes a very motivated child to spend a lot of time in a garden actually gardening. Hope that helps~Corrine

Greeting from another Michigan wintersower! I have some asters, not sure what kind though, they were snatched from some-one elses flowerbed(with permission).Drk purple and about two ft high. How about some rugosa roses and grape hyacinths?? Echinacea would be good too, the kids might not see the flowers but could watch the birds that eat the seed. I have all those seed. You might also try perennial sweet pea if you've got the room-mine are still around but I don't have any seed right now. Also try wild violets-I have plants but no seed. -B

Well just about everything sems to have been covered already but I can throw a couple of things into the mix to help. 1> Sawdust/shavings from the woodshop are great, but try to avoid using the plywood or particleboard shavings as plywood in the US is still generally made using formaldahyde 2> Since the piles take time to grow to a decent size before you start a new one have the kids bring in ALL their family's compostible waste for a few weeks in a closed bucket. That will jump start the first pile for you quickly so that next year your kids will have something to look at ealier than if you can only feed the pile a bit at a time. Same goes for adding the browns for the first few weeks. 3> I personally use a removable 4th side on my bins, more for looks than anything else (otherwise my dog would spend all day rummaging around in the pile for fun!). You might want to do this with your one just for neatness and as a way to help keep kids from getting too "messy" when they turn the pile. Since you are at a school there might also be something to be said for "dressing" the outside of the bins if you think it would be better. (this is purely asthetics). If you get that first pile built up quickly then the kids will get more enthusiastic next year when the pile is ready to use. Kids aren't exactly patient and compost takes time! And if you bring Lloyd on down, don't let him fly, ask him to drive down with 10 cubic yards of compost for you!

Probably the easiest to find milkweed seeds are common (A. syriaca), swamp (A. incarnata), butterflyweed (A. tuberosa), and tropical (A. curassavica). The tropical is not native or hardy up north and grown as an annual, but it is readily available and easy to grow. I'm sure if you posted on the seed exchange that you were looking for a large amount of milkweed seed you would get several offers for postage only or maybe even free since it is for a school project. Gardeners are pretty generous I have found especially if you are teaching kids to get involved with nature. Be sure to educate the kids and any plant recipients about the nature of milkweed and that the "milk" inside is an irritant that can cause eye damage if not handled properly. Some varieties like the common milkweed can exude lots of milk when cut while others like butterfly weed are much less drippy. The common is an excellent food source as it gets tall with quite large leaves and spreads a lot, but it may not be wanted in small gardens due to the aggressive nature. It is better for wilder areas. Swamp milkweed is smaller and less aggressive and likes moister soil obviously. Butterfly weed is even smaller and bushier and tolerates dry soil and has a large taproot to seek out moisture. I have had cats on all these kinds although the butterfly weed is less used when other juicier types are available. The butterfly weed is popular when first planted when the leaves are young and tender. In the pic below you can see I had my very first cats on tiny freshly planted seedlings of butterfly weed that I was shocked they even found. I agree with KC that you could try other butterfly host and nectar plants as well for some variety. Hosts for black swallowtails are readily available too. That butterfly life cycle book is excellent. While it doesn't cover all the butterflies it covers most of the common ones with great pictures that are very kid friendly. Most of the plants are easy to start using the wintersowing method. And easy option would be to sow seeds in extra large plastic drink cups, quart size yogurt tubs, or similar containers. The open tops make them easy to sow in, transport, gift, and plant out from. Below is a link the wintersowing FAQ if you aren't familiar with it. Here is a link that might be useful: Wintersowing FAQ