WALLOWA — “EWWWW! It’s a worm!”

“It’s cut in half!”

“Don’t worry. It’ll grow back together again.”

“No, it will just become two worms!”

Once Brandy Bronson’s fourth-grade class from Wallowa Elementary School got over its interest in earth worms, it was all business as they worked to turn the dark, rich soil at the community garden they adopted in front of the River House in Wallowa. It was a sunny day, and the work was hard for the eight students who wielded pitchforks and rakes.

Once the garden is weeded, and leveled, the class plans to plant vegetable starts, vegetable and flower seeds and strawberry starts. The seeds and starts were donated by Alder Slope Nursery. The strawberry plants were donated by the Enterprise Main Street Garden, located at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church.

The workday happened Tuesday, June 7, under partly cloudy skies. The students and Bronson first spent Friday, June 3, the school’s community service day, starting the clearing process of removing years of weeds and overgrowth in the garden.

The idea for the community garden project came to Bronson as she was trying to think of ideas for her summer programming activities.

“I’m a firm believer in teaching my own kids that food doesn’t come from the grocery store,” she said. “It’s possible to do it on your own (grow your own food) and acquire life skills, I guess. Anyway, if I can incorporate it (gardening) into my classes or summer programming, I’m all for it.”

The plan is to start with a small garden area and plant it with seeds and starts, keep it watered throughout the summer and use some of the vegetables — lettuce for example — in some of the summer programming cooking activities to make salads. Some of the vegetables will be harvested in the fall. Bronson explained she would like to see her current fourth grade class, who will be fifth graders in the fall, use the vegetables to make a few dishes for her incoming fourth grade class.

“With the project started at the end of the year, the (current) fourth-graders can see it go all the way around,” she said.

“It’s my belief that to get the most out of learning, teachers have to create experiences. Students get more out of learning if they are engaged,” she said. “Creating experiences such as the garden project allows students to feel like they are active in their learning process and this yields more growth and development.”