Gardening with kids?

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MiaPia Nashville, TN(Zone 6b) Jan 30, 2005

Does anyone else here garden with their kids? I've been looking forward to my kids being old enough to garden with, and this year my son (he is 3) will have his first garden. We've put aside a small area just for him (obviously I'll be doing all the "hard" work, while he has fun and learns the joy of earth and seeds!) and he picked which veggies he wanted to grow. I think we'll be doing his garden in containers - easier that way since I don't have a permanent spot for him yet.
He wants to grow tomatoes (his favorite veggie), peas, sunflowers, and pumpkins.
I think we're just going to do Tiny Tim for tomatoes, because I know they do well in containers, and he couldn't get enough of them last year - he ate them straight off the vines almost as fast as they grew! For peas we'll do Dwarf Gray Sugar Peas, again because they do well in a container. I'm thinking of converting the kids swimming pool from last year in to a planter for the pumpkins - wonder if that will work?

My son helped me a lot last year, weeding, planting seeds, and of course picking the veggies. This year even my 18 month old DD has helped me with my seed starting - I let her fill the containers with the soil-less mixture - what fun! Next year I plan on trying to find a permanent spot in the yard so the kids can have their own garden every year. Of course they'll be encouraged to help in the "family garden", but free to do anything they want in their own.

Anyone else getting their kids involved? I'd love to hear about it, and any ideas you may have!

This message was edited Jan 29, 2005 8:23 PM

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designart Schwenksville, PA(Zone 6a) Jan 30, 2005

When my son was about 3 I would take him to my job with me. I was a gardener for a couple with a small 5 acre estate. I maintained the perennial and rose gardens, annual gardens around the pool, front entrance annual beds and planters and hanging baskets at the front entrance of the home. He would help me water the plants, pull the hoses from one area to another and best of all he would deadhead the many Threadleaf Coreopsis plants they had. My customer wanted the Coreopsis deadhead weekly, not cut back every fews as they do in commercial sites. This was very time consuming. I simply bought round tipped scissors and taught my son how to deadhead! He loved it and would spend a good deal of time deadheading before he got bored!

Planting a children's garden is a great idea. Veggies are great...we always liked growing cherry tomatoes and cucumbers on a pyramid because we had very little space. Try planting a children's garden with annuals or perennials with expelling seed pods. Kids love popping the seed pods. Impatiens are easy to grow and have great pods in late summer through fall.

Best of luck and have fun with your children!!!

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