I know I said a few months ago that we are NOT the gardeners, but I have to say- we are kind of figuring this gardening gig out! It has been such a labor of love and something the whole family has pitched in to help out with. Normally my hubby takes the reigns on the garden, but this year I decided it would be sort of a project for the kids and I (we even added in a few homeschool lessons on it).
The first thing we did was have a family planning meeting to decide which plants we wanted to grow, when we would plant them, and where exactly we would put our garden. Once we had decided all of this, we drew a map of the garden, deciding where we would place each plant and how many of each we wanted to have. This helped a lot because some plants don’t need to be next to each other (a few years ago we learned the hard way that yellow squash and cucumbers aren’t supposed to be on rows next to each because it can cause the squash to be hard and knotty) and then some plants like to spread out and even attach to other plants (like melons and cucumbers), etc. So- once the planning was done we were ready to gather what we needed.
We planted some actual plants, but mostly seeds. ALL of my seeds came up, but some of my already growing plant didn’t make it. It took around 6-8 weeks before we could start picking things, but the kids’ excitement has been the best thing ever!
Some easy things for them to do have been helping weed the garden since they each have their own garden gloves, pick the veggies (their favorite!!!), and even mow and keep the grass cut around the garden. We like to do organic gardening so the kids have learned how to mix natural pesticides like Neem oil to keep mold and pests away. Another thing we use is diatamaceous earth to help with bugs, and the kids like to help put this on the plants as well.
Some of our favorite gardening essentials:
Some fun gardening finds for kids:
I thought it would be neat to share some finds to make gardening easier and more fun for your kiddos!
I would definitely recommend doing some sort of garden with your kiddos even if it’s a smaller one. Hope you guys got some ideas from this and happy gardening!
xoxo,
Lindsey
