Tag: gardening

Teaching Kids to Love Gardening

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The kids love the giant rhubarb leaves.

When I was little, my family had several small garden plots, each about 4 feet by 4 feet, all in a row and bordered with long square wooden posts.  Each of the kids in the family got a plot to themselves to grow whatever they wanted.  My sister, Anna, grew pumpkins one year.  And I remember growing a mix of wildflowers. I think my sister, Becca, liked to grow carrots.  Most years we would simply grow whatever vegetable we felt like in the moment.  We always had at least one family plot for bush beans, and it was our job, as kids, to pick them.  We never liked picking beans, but we always loved tending our own plots and watching our vegetables or flowers grow.

Luci loves to help move the flower pots around.

It was a simple thing, but it turned work in to pleasure.  Now I’m all grown up, but I still feel like a kid who gets to design and grow whatever she wants each spring.

Double eggplant and other odd shaped vegetables are always a fun find.

There’s something magical about taking care of a garden that will then take care of you.  Here are a few ways to involve the kiddos in that magic:

  • Let them plant with you.  You can make the hole, and the kids can put the seed in.
  • Let kids pick and eat veggies from the garden for snack time.
  • Have the kids help look for and collect potatoes when you dig them up.  It’s like finding a hidden treasure!
  • Make a little garden plot for each child where they can grow and tend whatever they want.
  • Ask the children to choose a veggie from the garden to eat with your meal.
  • Have the children paint rocks or sticks to use as garden markers.
I plant orange, yellow, purple and white carrots. Not because I prefer rainbow carrots, but because the kids love picking colorful carrots.

My Grandad used to have a beautiful strawberry patch.  He would tell us to go pick some strawberries and we’d ask “where should we put them?”  He’d say “in your breadbasket,” which was code for “stomach.”

We don’t preserve many peas on my homestead because the kids like to eat all of them from the vine!

I have great memories as a child in the garden.  And now I get to share my love of gardening with my nephews and niece, and they’re loving it, too.  What ways are you teaching the kids in your life to love the garden?

No Dig Gardening

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The No Dig Method of gardening is something I learned from Charles Dowding on his Youtube channel. It’s excellent, you should check it out! As the name implies, you plant your garden without digging or tilling.

Benefits of No Dig Gardening

Under the soil is a metropolis of life. Microbes and earthworms and all manner of healthy soil lie undisturbed. Once you till or dig or turn that soil, the microbial life breaks down and your soil loses health.

Soil erosion is the movement and loss of topsoil. By tilling, you are causing soil to deteriorate. Let’s remember that we need to feed the soil, not the plants in order for our gardens to feed us. Tilling is taking away from the soil, not feeding it.

Also among the soil under our feet lies a bunker full of weed seeds! Most people think that tilling will help eradicate weeds, but this is a misconception. Tilling, digging or turning your garden soil will not help with weed control. Indeed, you will find yourself pulling more weeds when the seeds are woken up.

How to Start a No Dig Garden

Supplies:
Cardboard, newspapers or paper bags
Compost

Directions:
Lay at least one layer of cardboard, paper bags or newspapers four pages thick where you want your garden bed to be. Be sure there are no cracks or grass or weeds will come through. Then cover the newspaper or cardboard with at least 6 inches of compost. Then plant away!

Roots will be able to penetrate the cardboard, so don’t be concerned about restriction. If your compost was processed correctly, at a high enough temperature, you shouldn’t need to worry about weeds more than a few here and there. If your compost does have weed seeds in it, you’ll want to mulch. I recommend mulching with old hay (the more rotted the better), because it breaks down wonderfully and continues to feed your garden.

This is the “before” picture. I decided to plant popping corn opposite the raspberries.

Make sure you don’t use cardboard or newspaper that is glossy or shiny. This won’t break down.

I actually went in later and straightened out that far end a little more.

Here’s a load of composted horse manure that I used. This spent the last year composting and is now ready to feed my garden.

Apart from the excellent vegetables, my favorite part about the no dig method is that when faced with the question “paper or plastic” I always choose paper, knowing that it will benefit my garden and keep a little less plastic out of the landfills. Also, not breaking my back trying to strong-arm the tiller is a plus!

Charles Dowding has experimented with identical planting of two beds, side by side: One with the no dig method and one with tilling. His results show better yields with the no dig garden bed. Even if the results were the same, why wouldn’t you choose less work over the alternative? If you’ve tried a no dig garden, let us know how it worked for you!