How To Grow A Gardener: 4 Fool Proof Ways To Teach Your Kids To Love To Garden

  "If you look the right way, you can see that the WHOLE WORLD is a GARDEN."
                                                 Frances Hodgson Burnett


    
     I remember my shock and disbelief as a kid, when I first learned that a Dandelion was a weed.  To me, they were nature's perfect gift!  A yard full of Dandelions was an embarrassment to my dad, but hours of fun for me.  "Mama had a baby and it's head popped off."  "Do you like butter?"  Dandelions made elegant crowns and necklaces, were perfect for coloring on the sidewalk, and, you could eat them!  For kids, it's not so hard to "look the right way", and "see that the whole world is a garden". 

                                                           Image: Dandelion Lessons, by RayKLui

    
     With a little bit of direction, we can tune our kids in to the wonder and benefits of gardening.

     4 Fool Proof Ways To Teach Your Kids To Love To Garden


     1. Get Up Close And Personal With Some Bugs
    
     Do your kids know that bees and butterflies and worms are a gardener's best friend?  Teaching kids that the fuzzy legs of a bee or a butterfly pick up pollen from one flower, and drop it off on another, or that finding worms in your soil means that it is healthy and aerated, is a perfect lesson on how everyone has a part to play, every little job is important. 
     Want more of these beneficials in your yard and garden?  Consider adding some specific plants and flowers to attract them.  Butterflies love:  Hollyhock, Zinnia, Butterfly Bush, Phlox, and Queen Anne's Lace.  Adding plants like, Dill and Milkweed are also a good choice, since these are a favorite food of caterpillars.  ("Attracting Butterflies, Hummingbirds, and Other Pollinators", gardeners.com)
     Finding more bees and butterflies in your garden can be as easy as giving them something to drink.

     "Bees, birds and butterflies also all need water. Install a water garden, a birdbath or a catch basin for rain. Butterflies are attracted  to muddy puddles, which they will flock to for salts and nutrients as well as water."  ("Attracting Butterflies, Hummingbirds, and Other Pollinators", gardeners.com)

                                                                                        (Butterfly Feeder, on pinterest.com)
                 

    2. Seeds, Soil, and Sunshine

     Show your kids the miracle that is a seed!  A good place to start is to show them the abundance of seeds in their very own kitchen.  Cut open an apple, to discover the star shaped collection of seeds.  Talk about the seeds on the outside of a strawberry, and the seeds in Raspberries and Blackberries.  Compare a tiny mustard seed to an impressive Avocado seed. 
     Plant some seeds!  It can be as simple as popping a few seeds in a pot, or finding your child a little plot in your garden.  Planting the seed, thrilling at the first sight of green, peaking from the soil, and watching and waiting and caring for a plant, is a sure-fire way to plant a love of gardening in your kids. 

     3.  Grow Your Own Food

     So much of the food our children know and love, comes in a package from the store.  What powerful lessons could we teach our children if we take them back to the source of real food?  It's all so beautifully simple.  You plant a seed, and with soil, and water, and sunshine, it will grow!  Nothing tastes better than food you've grown yourself!  Show your kids the joy of a strawberry so juicy, it drips down your chin and dyes your fingers red, or corn on the cob, sweet and perfect, or a tomato, picked fresh, to beat any imposter, grocery store tomato wannabe. 

     4.  Visit a Botanical Garden or A Farm
     Just about every town has a botanical garden open to the public.  Surrounded by dozens of varieties of beautiful flowers and trees and plants, with frogs and birds and butterflies as frequent visitors, our kids are likely to make a connection, and learn to love and appreciate the beauty around them, as they make happy, garden memories. 
     The American Horticulture Society makes it easy with a "Find A Garden", link on their website.  www.ahs.org.
     Let your kids experience life on a real farm!  A lot of small farms have a you pick option, which is perfect for "instant farmer", status for our kids.  Filling baskets with strawberries or blueberries or apples, and bringing them home to turn into something wonderful like a cobbler, pie, ice-cream, jam or caramel apples, is such a great experience, and a good lesson for kids to learn.  They know the source of their food, and they helped in the process.  That is huge!

 
    
Today's a new day, let's make it purposeful!
Kara