PEP Worm Composting

by Peter Papp and Jace Gonzalez

One P.E.P. choice is Worm Composting and Gardening. Students in this P.E.P. spend time planting different vegetables in the school garden. The school garden is also a part of the 5th grade curriculum at DAIS, so students get to see the work they do. In Worm Composting and Gardening, Mr. Seibert is the main teacher. He comments, “We mostly plant tomatoes but we also plant cucumbers, peppers, and cabbages.” This P.E.P. works in the six plant beds outside the library windows at DAIS. The worms will eventually get those veggies once they grow.

Worm Composting and Gardening students put food scraps in the soil so worms can eat them and digest the food scraps. After the worms process the scraps, their waste goes into the soil which makes it fertilizer and this is used to help the plants in the garden grow. “We use moist ground soil,” remarks Mr. Seibert. John Howard, a student in Worm Composting and Gardening mentions, “The weeds that mostly grow are dandelions.” They water their fruits and vegetables every night. Teachers and students in the P.E.P. help the cycle of composting go smoothly.

The students and teachers who garden also have some flowers growing in their planting beds. This P.E.P. is well organized by having different sections where they grow plants. They separate the different plants and put them in groups, for the best possible results. Some students who take this P.E.P. grow tomatoes on their own time, and we wonder, do they grow the tomatoes because they learned in the P.E.P., or did they grow them at home beforehand? Overall this P.E.P. was well organized and seemed like students knew what to do.