The Lake Highlands Community Garden has certainly been awash with rain of late.

But on October 25th, the garden was awash with Girl Scouts from Troop 458 based out of St. Monica's School at Midway and Walnut Hill.

What brought the 9 and 10 year-old girls to the garden was the opportunity to visit with, of all things, worms and bees.

The nine girls in the troop, along with Troop Leader Sarah Rehagen arranged for a Community Garden tour and a couple of tutorials.

The tour was led by LH gardener Heather Rinaldi, and along with showing the girls the compost bins and other work areas of the garden, took them from plot to plot and had them playing "guess the veggie."

Then came the very hands-on lesson about worms. Rinaldi knows her subject well, being the sole proprietor of Texas Worm Ranch.

"The mission of raising worms is to decrease the impact on the local waste stream, reduce time spent composting and create a safe and organic benefit to garden beds," explained Rinaldi.

"Red Wiggler worms do just that - they create beautiful, rich compost in a fraction of the time of normal composting."

Rinaldi had the girls dig right in the worm bin to separate the Wigglers, while teaching them about vermi-composting worm habitats and their beneficial results in the garden.

From there the girls headed to the Bee Sanctuary in the northwest corner of the garden.

They were met by Susan Pollard who, along with her husband Brandon, operates the Texas Honeybee Guild in addition to turning out their hyper-local "Zip Code" honey.

Pollard explained all the equipment used in handling bees and showed the girls the many different plants the bees feed on in the Bee Sanctuary.

She also talked about the type of environments most suitable for raising honeybees.

After two hours spent in the Lake Highlands Community Garden with local experts, the nine girls of Troop 458 are now well-versed in the lessons of worms, bees and gardening.

And rest assured, a brand-new badge is certainly coming their way to help prove it.

For more information about the Lake Highlands Community Garden, readers can visit http://www.lhgarden.org or drop by in person at the Goforth Road location, just behind the old armory building.

After all, lessons learned at the garden aren't just for Girl Scouts!