DIRECTIONS:

1. Have your child make a drawing on paper of how he or she wants the rainbow to look. This will guide you out in the garden.
2. Choose a garden area that receives at least 6 hours of sun daily. Your child can help remove the weeds and dig in some compost or aged manure to improve the soil. Always use gloves when working with manure.
3. With a stick, your child can make shallow, curved furrows about 1-1/2 feet apart that will form the different colored bands of the rainbow. It's easy to erase a line with a brush of the hand and start over, which will likely happen a few times. Unless your child has firm ideas about the order of the different colors, try to place the taller plants in the back rows.
4. If your rainbow will be larger than 6 feet across at the widest point, it's helpful to allow room for a narrow walkway between two of the middle rows so your child can reach the plants in the center to pull weeds and water.
5. Sow the seeds at the depth described on the seed packet. Or, if you are using bedding plants, allow 6 to 10 inches between plants in a row, depending on how large the plants will be when fully grown.
6. What about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? A pot of marigolds or gold-painted stones will do.
For more information, visit the National Gardening Association's projects for kids at www.kidsgardening.com.

Grow your own garden playhouse

Materials: sunny space, two window boxes, two trellises, soil and water and seeds

Nature Adventure club members put seeds and plants in window boxes to form a playhouse (tee pee) in the Children's Learning Garden at the Virginia Living Museum. Teacher is Jane Callaway. Photo: Virginia Living Museum

Directions:
1. Buy or build two window boxes and two trellises.
2. Attach the trellises with hinges or wires to make an A-frame.
3. Anchor the trellises into the ground so they won't tip over in high winds.
4. Fill the window boxes with soil and moisten thoroughly.
5. Plant seeds such as pole beans, cucumbers, non-edible red scarlet runner beans
6. There will be room to plant seeds in front of the vine. Try carrots, radishes, onions or flowers.

Keep well watered. In about a month you'll have a playhouse and in two months you'll have beans. Enjoy your playhouse all summer, says Jane Callaway, education associate at the Virginia Living Museum.

A detailed description of how to build window boxes and trellises for the garden playhouse is contained in "Wood Projects for the Garden" by Ortho Books, $9.95.
Photos: Virginia Living Museum

Wonderful wigglers

"Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!" says a 5-year-old gardener, gingerly pulling a fat earthworm out of the compost pile, then concentrating with great interest on the squirmy critter wriggling on his palm.

John Gaston holds an earthworm he dug out of the Children's Learning Garden at the Virginia Living Museum. Photo: Virginia Living Museum

Did you ever watch a hungry robin playing tug-of war with an earthworm and wonder how such a slippery critter with no arms or legs manages to "hold on" so tight? A worm's body has tiny bristles too small to see without a magnifying glass, says Christine Lewis, director of education at the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News. It can stick out these little hairs and wedge itself into the ground so tightly that the robin may not be able to pull it out without breaking it in two. If the bird gives up, the lucky worm quickly retreats into its burrow using strong muscles to stretch and pull in like a piece of elastic.

Did you ever notice that a worm has a front end and a back end? Although it doesn't have eyes, its body is sensitive to light. That's why it tunnels, front end first, into the ground or wiggles under a flowerpot to move away from bright sun. A worm's moist skin absorbs oxygen and the slimy coating keeps the animal from drying out.

Earthworms push and "eat" their way through the soil, digesting tiny pieces of dead plants and microorganisms. (A worm is strong enough to push an object 10 times its own weight!) One acre of land may have up to a million earthworms. In a single year, this army of worms can digest up to 36 tons of soil. As they burrow and eat, worms mix the ground like little plows, making small spaces in the soil that let in air and water needed by plant roots and adding humus. The little rounded piles of worm waste they leave behind on the surface are called castings. Look for castings in the grass after a rain. Finding them is a clue that earthworms are busy in your soil and their castings are free fertilizer for your plants.

After dark, look on the surface of the ground for the 6-inch-long worms called nightcrawlers. Originally from Europe, they may have accidentally been brought to the United States in the potted plants carried by homesick settlers. Australia is the home of 40-inch-long giant earthworms, but a single earthworm from South Africa holds the world record at 22 feet!

Garden ABCs
Build an Alphabet Garden at your home

Have fun outdoors with kids in an Alphabet Garden
The Alphabet Garden is a neat little spot in our Children's Vegetable Garden that families can re-create together at home, says Molly Patrick, youth and family program coordinator at Norfolk Botanical Garden.

For every letter of the alphabet we have planted a corresponding plant - from Aster to Zinnia. If you don't have space for 26 plants you can design your garden for every letter of your child's name. Better yet, let your child pick the plants for each letter of his or her name.

We labeled each plant with an inexpensive wooden letter from the craft store. The children painted each letter and we drilled holes in them, inserted dowels into the letters and planted the letters right into the garden bed. This makes such a fun display, the children love it, plus it's educational.

The Children's Vegetable Garden is a small garden space at Norfolk Botanical Garden where 20 children and their families enjoy fun, hands-on gardening and garden activities. Each child has a 4-by-6-foot plot where they grow tomatoes, strawberries, radishes, beans, flowers and herbs. We share sunflowers, runner beans, kiwi, gourds, watermelon and much, much more. Every Saturday morning something new is happening in the garden; from planting, weeding and watering to tie-dying, painting and picnicking. Turn your home-based alphabet garden into a place for activities like these; let your children write stories and draw pictures about each plant, then turn those creations into a notebook they can keep and show their children one day.

To talk with Molly, call the gardens, 757-441-5830, Ext. 39 or 247-441-5838.

Book bites: The Family Butterfly Book

NAME: The Family Butterfly Book

PUBLISHER: Storey Books (www.storeybooks.com)

AUTHOR: Rick Mikula, known as the grandfather of butterfly farming. He owns the Hole-in-Hand Butterfly Farm and serves as a habitat consultant for numerous museums, zoos, aviaries and parks, such as Dolly Parton’s Butterfly Emporium at Dollywood and the Hershey Gardens Butterfly House.

DESCRIPTION: Learn how to plan easy backyard or container gardens that build a biological bridge to help our "flying flowers" thrive in suburban back yards. The guide contains amazingly detailed drawings of chrysalides and eggs — many of which have only appeared in state naturalists’ files, inaccessible to the average backyard butterfly lover. His clear photographs and easy-to-follow directions describe how to identify eggs in your garden, hatch them into caterpillars and follow the complete metamorphosis, something families can do together as a science-type gardening project during the summer.

Forty butterflies are featured in the Lepidopteran Gallery, along with half a dozen projects families can make for under $10 each. You even learn how to hand-feed butterflies.

COST: $29.95 hardcover, $16.95 paperback (176 pages); available at bookstores. The Monarch Watch conservation project receives 2 percent of the profits from sales of the book; visit www.monarchwatch.org.

Fossil foliage

Bottom row: fern, cycad, horsetail

Kid-like things to do

NORFOLK BOTANICAL GARDEN
Summer Camp. Weekly sessions June 25-Aug. 17, ages 5-10. Register for all 8 weeks and be enrolled in Junior Master Gardener Program through Virginia Cooperative Extension. Fees.

BUTTERFLY GARDEN. Watch them grow, then let them go with this Live Butterfly Garden kit for ages 4-plus. $18.99, Wild Wings Nature Store, Newport News.

Birthday Parties. Celebrate your child's birthday. Programs designed for ages 4-8; $100 birthday party fee includes nature program for 15 children, narrated train tour, classroom use for 1 hour. New: Lakes Alive boat birthday party for ages 9-10.

Garden Overnights for Families. Bring your tent, sleeping bags and snacks and camp out in gardens. Dinner, activities and morning breakfast provided. June 16-17, July 28-29 and Aug. 25-26. Fees.

Storybook Forest Fun. Bring your preschooler ages 3-5 to participate in stories, games and craft projects to take home 10:30 a.m.-noon June 20, July 18 and Aug. 15. Fees.

Norfolk Botanical Garden. Use Norview Avenue Exit off Interstate 64 and follow signs to the gardens. For information on garden admission and hours, call 441-5830; to register for special programs and obtain fee information, call the education department, 441-5838.

VIRGINIA LIVING MUSEUM
Outdoor Aviary. New 800-foot boardwalk and 5,000-square-foot coastal plains aviary opens June as first phase of museum's $21 million expansion. Elevations up to 11 feet take visitors to the treetops to view pelicans, egrets, herons, cormorants, ducks and other birds in their new natural habitat enclosure.

Butterflies, Bugs 'n Blooms. June 16-Oct. 7, see fluttering butterflies and blooming plants in the butterfly house, Virginia Living Museum. Volunteers on hand to identify local insects and share tips on creating backyard haven.

Pollination Station. June 23-Oct. 7, watch live chrysalids emerge into butterflies. Enjoy interactive exhibits about pollinators. Young visitors act out the stages of pollination with puppets.

Virginia Living Museum. 524 J. Clyde Morris Blvd., Newport News. Admission fees, hours: visit www.valivingmuseum.org or call 595-1900.

VIRGINIA ZOOLOGICAL PARK
World of Birds. Now through Aug.12. Three free-flight shows per day; each 25-minute show features variety of birds, including hawks, owls, vultures, parrots and more. Daily performances 10:30 a.m., 1 and 3 p.m., except Mondays.

Meet Your Zoo Day. July 14, Virginia Zoological Park. On Aug. 18, Twin Tiger Birthday Bash. The zoo also offers birthday parties, overnight stays and zoo camps.

Summer Safari Camp. Begins June 25, ages 4-grade 9. 626-0803.

Virginia Zoological Park. 3500 Granby St., Norfolk. Admission, hours: visit www.virginiazoo.org or call 441-5227 or 624-9937.

VIRGINIA MARINE SCIENCE MUSEUM
Fishy Fun for Preschoolers. Create a cool hat, learn a fishy song, listen to a story and more. Fees.

Raging Reptiles. 2-3:15 p.m. June 14, visit new reptile exhibit to see live Gila monster.

Reptiles, the Beautiful and Deadly. Now through end of year.

Trash Bash 2001. See how to help conserve our marine environment.

Summer Day Camp. Designed for various age levels, including special evening camp.

Sleep-Overs. Sleep with the Fish July 28, sleep with the otters Aug. 18, Virginia Marine Science Museum. Museum also offers birthday parties for ages 3-12 years.

Virginia Marine Science Museum. 717 General Booth Blvd., Virginia Beach. For admission, hours, directions and fees for special programs: www.vmsm.com or call 425-FISH. To inquire or register for educational programs, call 437-6007.