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Earlier this spring, I picked the boy up from school on a rainy evening. As we left the building, with a classmate and their teacher, we saw dozens of worms squiggling through puddles on the sidewalk. The kids quickly started scooping up the worms to move them to higher ground, cheered on by their teacher while the other mother and I cringed. Now admittedly their teacher’s reaction was better than mine — embracing their curiosity and seizing the opportunity to learn something.

Our adventure in organic gardening is forcing me to develop a more, uh, accepting response to bugs. Worms of course are one of the beneficial creatures to the garden, so they’re a little easier to love than some others.

When the boy and I set out to prep our garden plot for planting, we uncovered two big, healthy-looking earthworms. We let them scurry to safety before planting our pea seeds. A little later, the boy spotted the neighbor boy in his yard, and rushed to the fence calling out, “Guess what? My mommy and me found two worms in our garden! That means our soil is really healthy for the plants!”

“Worm Wednesday” is a new feature here to highlight the enthusiasm kids have for gardening. I’ve already asked a few other family gardeners to share — but if you’d like to contribute, send me a picture and description or story of your garden to foodietots@gmail.com, and you could see your garden here on Foodie Tots!