HANOVER — A half-dozen young children dug into a snack Wednesday morning after working in the library’s vegetable garden.

They harvested cucumbers and each will bring one home to enjoy with their family. They were also busy gathering and destroying Japanese beetles, volunteer Lynne Ramsey said. The beetles are particularly thick this year and enjoy munching on the garden’s plants.

Last week, the children picked zucchini, and soon, tomatoes, pumpkins and other vegetables will be ready to gather.

This is the second year of the Gardiner Roberts Memorial Library’s garden program, and the third for a summer children’s program, volunteer librarian Peg Susbury said.

Appropriately, the summer program’s theme and title is Composting Art Planting Stories.

The composting part will come later, but already some of the 30 or so children who have participated so far this summer have been bringing in household plant wastes to put in the new compost bin.

The weekly CAPS program calls for gardening, reading stories, making crafts and getting creative in other artistic media.

On Wednesday, the children were painting small birdhouses and decorating book bags sewn by the Library Bees, a women’s group that sew a variety of items that are sold to make money for library projects.

The summer program, which meets each Wednesday morning, began June 22. It will continue at that time until the end of August when school begins. Then, the program will continue into the fall, but will meet from 3 to 5 p.m. each Wednesday, Susbury said.