Something Exciting Is Happening Here

It’s a cold dreary day in March when we pull into the Lake Country School parking lot. In the back of the car are 25 recycled milk jugs, four pounds of soil and 40 native prairie seed packets. Inside the school are 65 students in grades 1-3, ready and waiting to take part in our winter seed sowing workshop. With me is Callie Laz-Davis, food coordinator and farm educator at the Lake Country Land School.

We run the workshop in small groups, moving through three stations: soil preparation, seed sowing, and watering. But before all of this, we sit down and have a conversation. “Has anyone ever visited a prairie?” we ask. “What makes a native prairie plant unique and special?” “How does planting a native prairie, even a small one, help the environment?”

As it turns out, these kids know a lot! They raise their hands and talk about pollinators and building urban habitat for beneficial insects. They describe the long taproots of prairie plants that make them tolerant of heat and drought. They share stories of the birds they have noticed, eating the seeds of native plants in the late fall and early spring. And they talk about the beauty, and which flowers they are most excited to plant. We get to work!

At the end of the hour and a half, our 25 milk jugs have transformed into micro-greenhouses. Each one is labeled with a plant name, date and the insect or bird that it supports. The students help carry them outside to a small strip of south facing dirt, where the seeds will freeze and thaw for the next 30 days, finally cracking through their seed coats and sprouting. All through the month of April, students will watch for signs of germination, peering down through the spout, looking for green. 

In May, when spring finally arrives in Minnesota, this patch of dirt will become a pocket prairie, creating a small piece of wild habitat in the city. In coming seasons sStudents can start the cycle over again, collecting seeds from this outdoor classroom to take home and share with the wider community. “What’s happening with the milk jugs?” someone asks. “We’re growing seeds!” the students answer. “Something exciting is happening here!”

Special thanks to  the MN SEED ProjectSeed and the Como Community Seed Library for donating many of the seeds used in this winter sowing workshop, and for helping to make the pocket prairie at Lake Country School a reality.