I have five kids , and to be honest , some years , they ’ve been more of a encumbrance than a help in our family gardening attempt . When they were all very small , as I ’d plant something , they ’d “ help ” by “ planting ” it again . I ’d put down label , only to have the current toddler rearrange them for me . And on it extend .
When all is read and done , though , those gardens produced just fine , and more significantly , I was able-bodied to share my love of growing food with my children . A crime syndicate thatplants carrotstogether , stays together , I say . I should embroider that on a pillow .
way to Grow
In our family garden , each kid gets their very own garden bed to cultivate for the twelvemonth . ( If you have limited space , you’re able to assign each child a generous - sized pot . ) We practice biodiversity techniques , so the children are used to plant beets with Chamaemelum nobilis andpumpkinswithlettuce . By the middle of summer , the garden bed looks likecrazy quilts .
As theseed catalogsstart rolling , my small fry like to cut them up and use the bright - colored photographs for various projects . One of my miss always seems to have a “ flower daybook ” kicking around her room : a newspaper notebook with dozens of blossom pictures glued indoors . This is her garden . It inspires her . I decided to rein in that inspiration and creativeness to help us plan the vegetable garden for the coming spring . I ’m convert nothing can stand in the way of the genius grow by a child with a crayon , some scratch report and some dirt .
Garden Planning — Child - Style
rent some lettuce newspaper publisher and crayons , I sit the kids down and tell them to let their garden dreams unaffixed . I plunk down a casserole lid fill with turd into the center of the table , break it up into a storage-battery grid with some bamboo skewer ( aka , a straightforward foot garden ) and recount them to fill it with picture of whatever flora they need . Anything we want?Yes , anything they require . In this photo , you ’ll acknowledge the peach tree in the call forth garden seam .
The point of this exercise isnotto accurately project every minute detail of your veg garden . you could get specific by and by , when you ’re putting downmulch and compostand planting seeds . The point is to inspire your children with a sense of ownership of the amount year ’s garden . At the same time , you ’ll be motivated by their ebullience . You ’ll get wind what they must have in their garden , watch out them move over zukes to make room for zinnias . You ’ll notice that three children edit out out watermelon for the garden ; looks like we really want watermelon this year , you ’ll mention .
One of my girl colored and rationalise out a lachrymation can , which chair to a expectant give-and-take about how a garden is an everyday commitment . You have to make certain your plants have enough admission to water , food and light . You have to take out theweeds . If you spend all day swim and no time tending , you do not reap . This was a moral we learned the hard room last year , when we lost an heirloom Lycopersicon esculentum to dehydration . And this , my friends , is what a children ’s garden is for .
A Teaching Tool
There are so many living lessons just outside our back doors disguise as poop , bugs and plants . Connecting a child to those lessons by allow and promote them to rent in gardening ( and even to fail at it every now and then ) is a blessing that will serve them well for the rest of their life . garden are a lot of oeuvre . As G.B. Hinckley remark , “ Without laborious work , nothing grows but weed . ” Is n’t that rightful of every worthy endeavor we absorb in as tyke or adults ?
To get the children connected to the coming garden — to help them remember the “ why ” of all that work — let them pursue in a scrap of creative , capricious preparation right now . Even though it ’s still cold and the equinoctial point is far away , lecture about the meritoriousness of a peach tree diagram in the vegetable garden or growing zinnias to give to the fairies . A bite of whimsy now just might bring out a watermelon afterward .
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