gardening with your bunch

By Jenny Rulli

Spring is the time of year when I drive around eying front yards and window boxes looking for ideas, jealous of one house’s great sunlight or a decades old hydrangea bush. I haven’t lived in any one house long enough to cultivate a ten year old anything but I’ve managed to restart a garden every two or so years and keep my bunch involved too.

The most important reason why I garden with my kids (or sometimes, just within earshot of my kids) is to teach them about nature. I started to think about this more and more as we visited the neighborhood farmer’s market and local farms and decided that I shouldn’t just show my kids nature, I should really get my hands dirty.

Most of us want to instill these values in our bunch but when it comes to all the things that need to get done in a given day, its priority falls somewhere between organizing the junk drawer and vacuuming the mini blinds, that is, “it can wait for another day.” But the great thing about putting in the work now is the almost immediate return you get on your time and money. Your bunch may even burn off some energy and gain some vitamin D after 30 minutes in the garden.

I can’t overestimate the importance of the soil you use. In Virginia, I see nothing but clay. This is where the real labor comes in. Break up your soil and remove any weeds. Add a few bags of humus from your gardening center or compost if you are a gardening overachiever (and don’t get me started on how awesome compost is!). Topsoil with peat moss is another good thing to throw on there if you want extra insurance on those plants.

Now the soil step takes time, so you’ll need to keep your Bunch busy and happy. Our neighborhood uses the “it takes a village” approach with kids flitting back and forth while the moms work in the garden. My neighbor has been known to bring out her 3 y.o. and baby, park the baby in the bouncy seat, set the 3 y.o. on his scooter and get down to work. Baby is happy as long as he can see mom and his older brother can scoot with his friends. A glass of wine when the work is done is a nice treat for you too.

Some other outdoor distractions for your bunch: playing with the hose, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, collecting acorns, feeding the birds or even the pesky squirrels. Another great activity is building a hideout under a tree (mom should check for poison ivy first).

And for those kids who tend to wander, fill a large plastic tub with a little water and let them take an outdoor bath in their swimsuits. Play with some bath toys or water guns. My daughter eventually turns this into compost “soup” by adding any scraps she finds in the yard. At the end of the day, we pour it on the plants to water them. This way, she feels as if collecting leaves, acorns and dirt did some good for the garden. She’s also a lot happier if she has her own gloves and a pink shovel from Target. A girl’s gotta accessorize.

If you are juggling a toddler and a baby or just have low gardening self-esteem, start with potted plants . You can move them around to find the best light and if they wither and die, you haven’t lost a ton of money. They make your back deck or your front porch look happy. Hell, they make me happy every time I drag my children home after a long day.

Great plants for pots: peppermint (grows like a weed), lavender, strawberries, coleus (vibrant foliage in purples, greens and reds), sweet potato vine (limey green heart-shaped leaves) or impatiens in any color. Just make sure you water regularly because these will dry out faster than plants in the ground. Other creative ideas on a small scale are hanging baskets and windowboxes. The newest ones even have reservoirs so that you don’t have to water them everyday. How easy is that?

Build your confidence further by successfully turning over a small section of yard. If you think about the whole darn thing, you’ll give up and have a glass of wine. But if you accomplish a reasonable plan or list of items, you’ll want to do this every week.

When you are in your planning stages, ask your child to draw a picture of what she thinks it should look like too. Maybe give her a small section that’s all her own. Let her plant some surprise seeds and just see what happens.

So what do I plant? Put a few tall bushes in back to anchor the space and then you can begin to layer smaller plants in front. You do not need to complete everything in one afternoon! Add one plant a week until it feels “done.” Keep in mind that if you buy plants at Home Depot or Lowe’s and they die within a year, you can return them! You must keep the original sku and receipt.

How much sun? Those of us with lots of shade have surrendered our dreams of abundant flowers and instead planted hostas, heuchera, nandina and astilbe. Maybe some impatiens in a pot to add some color. I’ve found that the Home Depot type stores sell very few shade plants. You really need to go to a true gardening center for these. If you have sun, the sky is the limit. You cannot kill a “knockout” rose bush! Ask the experts at the garden center for recommendations for your climate and light.

You don’t need to have a farm to grow food! I love to mix my herb garden in with my flowers. You would never know that there’s a kitchen garden hidden in my front yard in between the pansies. If I didn’t have time to make it to Trader Joe’s because of my four-year old's tantrum, I can clip some kale for dinner out of the front yard. Better yet, I can get him to fill up a colander himself, with a pair of kid scissors. I have a yard smaller than my bedroom but I’ve grown zucchini, acorn squash, tomatoes, strawberries, leafy greens, lettuce and every herb I can think of. Not all have been perfectly successful but I harvested much more than I thought possible in a small space.

Planting seeds with your kids is a fun project in springtime and it tricks them into learning about science. Let your kids pick some seed packets at the store. Beans work well as do lettuces and herbs. Have them choose something they like to eat or a bright flower. Buy some starter soil and fiber pots which breathe better than plastic ones. Help your bunch plant a few seeds in each pot.

Older kids can label their pots and find a sunny window for them to grow. Once a week, ask your child for an update on their seedlings. Is it sprouting yet? Can we measure it with a ruler? Does the soil seem dry? Give them very small amounts of water and keep them out of reach of little hands that might want to overwater them. Once the plants are several inches high, you can plant the whole pot in the ground outside. Make sure your child puts the plant label in the ground too. Hopefully, once grown, the kids will want to eat their own project or bring their own flowers to Grandma. My kids have a love of anything green and fragrant thanks to these kinds of experiments.

Like any other project we take on as moms, be realistic and congratulate yourself when you have a small success. Take lots of pictures to remind yourself how you started and how you transformed your corner of earth. Your bunch will be the better for it.

Websites to check out:
http://www.kidsgardening.org/ (click on Parents’ Primer)
http://www.composting101.com/
http://familyfun.go.com/ (type gardening in to the search field)
http://www.gardeningwithkids.org/ (catalog)

Jenny is mom to two children ages 6 and 4. She lives in Northern Virginia.

Comments

[Rachel O.]

Hi Jenny! Thanks for the article. Can you recommend some baby-safe (non-poisonous) plants for a container garden (outside or inside is fine)? I'm always worried my kids will chew on something and die... :(

[Jenny]

What about herbs? Sage, peppermint, rosemary, basil or lavender. They are totally edible and pretty too. Basil comes in a bunch of shades if you are looking for foliage. Nasturtium is an edible flower that you could plant. I would stay away from tomatoes, as their leaves are not edible.
Begonias (very plentiful this time of year, coleus, and geraniums should also be safe around toddlers who like to "experiement". My sister's daughter won't stop eating dirt! You would think that would be a "self-correcting" behavior but I guess not!

[CAmommy]

my almost 2 yr old enjoys collecting the seeds that fall off the palm trees in our local park...we collected a ton in a bucket, sprinklled them in an empty dirt planter in the back yard & now we have (free) baby palm trees sprouting:)

[MS.Small Businesses]

Great post..
collecting and also planting a seeds much very fun ...
enjoy reading these article and more learning about these posts!!!
AWESOME...