What to do? Wednesday

Posted By Melissa on August 5, 2009

We have a great piece of property…flat, not too big, not too small (yet), and did I mention flat? We’ve also turned into quite the “green thumbs.” Planting our garden near our septic drain field probably helps too.

Before and after shots of this year’s garden.

Anyway, gardening is a great activity to do with your kids.

Why?

I’m so glad you asked.

1. Kids love dirt.

2. Gardening is a living, breathing spiritual metaphor. (Enter Exhibit A on left: Pruning–If we don’t cut the diseased leaves off, the whole plant gets sick).

3. You get to reap eat what you sew.

4. It’s fun and rewarding.

5. Did I mention, KIDS LOVE DIRT?

You’re probably thinking what I thought…She’s a little late to be talking about gardening. Aren’t you supposed to plant in May?

I was actually thinking…So many blogging topics (like Garden 2009), so little time. Hey, gardening would make a great What to do? Wednesday. Two birds with one stone. I should of thought of that back in June and saved this post for now. Well, I’ll make it work anyway.

Where to start? Well, you can check out some of these sites…
Kiddie Gardens
Hortikids–helping kids grow
Kids’ Valley Garden

Depending on your yard and climate, you can decide if you want to try something inside (such as window sill herbs) or outside. If you go outside, you can decide between potted plants (flowers or veggies) or creating a garden.

July is not too late for this post because there are some plants (veggies especially) do well in the cooler months that are fast approaching. Some suggestions are peas, spinach, pumpkins, and winter squash.

One thing we tried this year was building a make shift trellis for our gourds to climb. Patrick leaned a couple 2 x 8 board up agains the house and strung string across them.

We also hooked up a drip hose and buried it (I mean about 5) under our garden. Instead of taking time to water our garden properly (which we were really bad at last year), we just go out and turn on the drip hose for a couple hours.

If you’re looking for something very fun (but not so practical), try planting a sensitive plant. We learned about them at Epcot last year. When you touch it, it folds up. This one is in the mimosa family.

Before touching After touching