Today, my garden club for third, forth, and fifth graders will meet after school. We have two meetings in the month of May, instead of our usual single monthly meeting. On this first meeting, we typically weed the garden, turn over the soil to aerate it and loosen it up. If you read my post last week, you know a pesticide was sprayed (in error) on our twelve-year-old school butterfly habitat that also serves as a Certified Monarch Habitat or WayStation. Since the spraying was so close to our meeting and really, really should not happened in the first place, I decided to let the weeding go and keep the students out of the garden until our planting session at the end of the month. The planting is the culmination of the school year’s work for garden club students.
Today, we will discuss the monarch life cycle, the importance of milkweed, and where the migration stands with this dwindling population of butterflies. Each student will plant common milkweed seeds (saved from my own garden beds) that will serve as the host plant for the monarch life cycle, starting with the egg being laid by an adult, female monarch, followed by the caterpillar stage during which milkweed is the only source of feeding, and during which the caterpillar sheds its skin five times. The chrysalis is formed after the skin is shed for the last time, after the caterpillar has attached itself to a branch or stem, house shingle, sunflower, or any number of existing environmental assistives. The chrysalis must hang off the ground for the metamorphosis to take place. It is an awe-inspiring event to watch, but most often goes unnoticed and camouflaged in nature. After about 10-14 days, a beautiful monarch emerges and the process starts again.
The whole process and life of the monarch is dependant on habitat and the availability of milkweed. This is why the students will take the milkweed seeds they plant today home to start a habitat in their own yards.
Zinna seeds will also be planted for each student to take home. Zinna’s provide many species of butterflies with nectar. They color and hardiness attract the fluttering insects throughout the summer, well into fall. Zinna’s are also easy to grow.
Since learning the garden that we made into a Monarch Habitat so many years ago and well before it was needed and a “popular” thing to do, I decided that I must change course. Today, starts the path down a different road. I will try to instill the awe of a metamorphic and migrational life of a tiny, seemingly fragile creature in the minds of my students. The future is theirs. The future is ours. I will help them plant the seeds of our future in their own lives.
The Apples in My Orchard 
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