Most years, November is the month West Virginia families pack up the garden and head inside. This year may give you a little more time. WV MetroNews reports that the federal Climate Prediction Center has placed all of West Virginia in the above-normal temperature category for November, with roughly a 40 percent chance of a warmer-than-normal month, thanks to a strengthening El Niño.
A forecast is not a promise, and the mountains can still see snow. But a milder lean means more afternoons that are comfortable for working outside. That makes this a smart moment to set up next spring's garden, and to turn all those fallen oak and maple leaves into a science experiment your kids can run right through winter.
Here is the idea: build a raised bed now, layer it with leaves, and let your children measure how fast nature turns leaves into soil. By spring, they will have months of real data and a bed that is ready to plant.
What your kids will learn
A raised bed is not just a gardening project. It is a science lab that stays open all year.
Grades K-5
- What plants need to grow: sunlight, water, soil and space
- How fallen leaves break down and become part of the soil
- How to measure with a ruler and record the same thing week after week
- How a seed becomes a sprout, then a plant, when spring comes
Grades 6-12
- Decomposition and the role of fungi, bacteria and earthworms in soil building
- Designing a fair test with one variable (whole versus shredded leaves)
- Calculating the area and volume of a garden bed and planning plant spacing
- Graphing data over time and writing a conclusion from real measurements
This week's activity: the Leaf Breakdown Race
You can do this with things you already have. All you need is leaves, two containers and a ruler.
- Collect leaves. Rake up a big pile of dry fallen leaves. Oak, maple and tulip poplar are all common in West Virginia yards. Wear gloves.
- Make your variable. Leave half the leaves whole. Shred the other half by tearing them into small pieces by hand, or have an adult run them over with a lawn mower.
- Set up two test bins. Use two buckets or plastic bins of the same size. Have an adult poke a few drainage holes in the bottom. Label them "Whole" and "Shredded."
- Fill them the same way. Put the same depth of leaves in each bin, about 8 inches, then add one scoop of garden soil on top and the same amount of water. Keeping everything else equal is what makes it a fair test.
- Predict. Ask your kids which bin will shrink faster and why. Write the prediction down.
- Measure every week. Stand a ruler in the center of each bin and record the depth. Add a note about the weather, color, smell and anything living you spot, like worms or white fungus threads.
- Graph it. Younger kids can draw bars on paper. Older kids can make a line graph with weeks on the bottom and depth on the side.
Keep the bins outside through winter and check them every week or two. By March, you will have a clear answer, and a lesson in decomposition that no textbook can match.
Take it all the way to harvest with a raised garden bed
The Leaf Breakdown Race is a great start. The Raised Garden Bed Plant Science Kit turns it into a complete outdoor science course that carries your family from this fall into next summer.
- A 6 × 3 × 1 ft galvanized steel raised bed with a rust-resistant coating and an open bottom for drainage
- Five peat pots, seed-starting soil and five different seed varieties so kids can start seeds indoors and transplant them outside
- Grade-level curriculum and worksheets for K-5 or 6-12 (you choose at checkout), emailed after purchase, including a garden planning map, a germination and growth tracking chart, and a reflection sheet or lab report template
Set the bed up while the weather is still friendly. Many gardeners add a layer of fallen leaves to a new bed in fall so they can break down over winter. One honest note: a full bed holds about 18 cubic feet of garden soil, which is not included in the kit, so plan on picking some up from a local garden center.
Then, in late winter, your kids start their seeds in the peat pots, watch them sprout on a sunny windowsill, and move them outside into the bed they built. Older students calculate the bed's area and volume, design a planting layout, and compare how the five varieties grow under the same conditions.
Join the growing community
Every kit comes with an invitation to Aardvark's Seed Planting For Little Hands, our private group for families using our kits. It is where kids share progress photos, parents ask questions, and everyone troubleshoots experiments together.
We would love to see your Leaf Breakdown Race results. Post your bins, your graphs and your first spring sprouts. Young growers in West Virginia, Arkansas and Arizona are all learning side by side, and it is fun for kids to see how gardens look in such different places at the same time of year.
Get your garden lab ready
The Raised Garden Bed Plant Science Kit (6 × 3 × 1 ft) is $94.99 and includes the bed, seed-starting supplies, five seed varieties and grade-level curriculum and worksheets.
Get the Raised Garden Bed Science Kit
Rake the leaves, set up the bins, and let your kids watch a backyard full of leaves turn into next year's garden soil.
