Garden Questions from a Four Year Old

This afternoon my daughter and I were out in the garden doing a few tasks that needed tackled: we planted potatoes and filled in a raised bed with soil. We brought a bucket of water with us and stuck newspapers in the wet water before laying them over the grass clippings in the raised bed (you can see a picture of that in this post about lawns). Then we filled the bed with soil. At four she's old enough to do many of the garden activities I do and old enough to ask a lot of questions along the way!

Here's a few garden questions from my daughter that I can remember.

Q. Why are you wetting the newspaper before you put it down (on the grass clippings)?
A. Wetting the newspaper holds them down long enough for me to cover with soil and helps to add moisture to heat up the layers underneath.


Q. Why are you leaving the leaves in the dirt?
A. Because leaves enrich the soil as they breakdown.


Q. Are leaves good for the soil?
A. Yep. They add organic matter that is good for the soil.

Q. Do we have any more potatoes to plant?
A. No ten is enough for us, we'll have plenty of potatoes ('Yukon Gold') with 10 plants.

Q. Is this a weed?
A. Yes that's chickweed.

Q. What about this plant with the pretty purple flowers?
A. Yes that's a weed too, called henbit.

Q. We are going to have lots of strawberries this year! (OK that's a statement not a question).
A. I hope so!

Q. [When in the front yard] Ewww, what's that smell?
A. That's just the smell of the Bradford pears in bloom! Great isn't it? [Yet another reason not to plant one - the odor is awful!]

There were many more questions that I can't remember, you know how 4 year olds are!