Field Trip

A Homeschooling mom we met at our community fair last year called to invite us to come along on a field trip to Ed Hume's garden yesterday.

We met her and her two kids, along with two other homeschooling mom's and their kids and were given a tour of the garden by Mr. Ed Hume himself.

He's a wonderful tour guide and makes things especially interesting and fun for the children while at the same time teaching about plants and gardens in a simple way. One acre of his 3 acre lot is fully planted and broken into several separate gardens. First was the Japanese garden. Second was the vegetable row garden where he grows vegetables and donates them to soup kitchens in the area. Third was the Puzzle Garden where he had fun little word puzzles throughout. Here he is giving clues and the children had to figure out the puzzles. In the second photo above, you can see Mr. Hume pointing to a tree with cut out hands hanging all over it. This is his 'Palm Tree'. I won't give away any of the answers to the other puzzles in his garden in case you visit it yourself.

Next we headed along the path to the garden with all of the bug eating plants! This was one of my kids' favorites. After that was the Drought garden which didn't fare too well this year after eight years so it's being ripped out and Mr. Hume will put in an English garden in it's place. Next was the Native Garden, then the Herb Garden where he gave each child a piece of his Pineapple Mint to smell or taste and then into his tunnel made of climbing plants and vines. After this we had to enter the maze individually which, once you found your way through, came out into the Crazy Garden.

Here's one of the creatures in the Crazy Garden. A giant Aphid, created in honor of the Aphids that destroyed the $100,000 worth of Hops donated by Ezra Meeker who planted Hops all throughout the Puyallup Valley here.

The Crazy Garden trail is lined by these hand painted bowling balls. Children and adults of all ages painted these balls.

This was my favorite Rhododendron in the garden. I liked the unique color. It was a much brighter peachy, yellow than the photo shows - like a sunset. Mr. Hume said this is his wife's favorite also and that it is a rarer color.

Then Mr. Hume gathered the children at his potting shed and planted sunflower seeds in small pots for each child to take home.

He then took us into his greenhouse ( which smelled fabulous - I love the smell inside of warm greenhouses!) and taught the kids how to plant cuttings using rooting hormone and the cycle of a tomato plant.

At the end of the tour Mr. Hume took us all into the giant warehouse where the seed packing machines are set up. There were 7 of them and they've been working since the 1800's. Here one of the men who packs the seeds showed us all how the machines put seeds into the tiny packets and answered questions. These are the same seed packets we buy at the stores here. There were shelves and shelves filled with all kinds of seed packets ready to go off to the stores.

There was a table set up in the warehouse where Mr. Hume's daughter ( adult ) set out cookies and juice for everyone and Mr. Hume answered any final questions. He said our little group of homeschoolers were much better behaved than the group he'd had come through last Thursday.

I asked if sometimes he has to go out and warn his plants that they're in for a rough ride that day with the groups of school children coming through. He laughed and said yes.

It was much more fun than I'd thought it would be and we were each given a packet of carrot seeds and a packet of radish seeds. My kids really enjoyed it too and can't wait to go out and plant their seeds.