One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides.
~W.E. Johns
Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden.
~Robert Brault
Coffee. Garden. Coffee.
Does a good morning need anything else?
~Betsy Cañas Garmon
If you’ve never planted a vegetable garden, you should! There is great satisfaction in growing vegetables. There is great beauty in a head of lettuce and little scallion sprouts popping up out of the dirt. In a garden you can experience true living in the moment. You experience mindfulness as you watch the bugs and dig up worms. It’s a chance to be an artist. I like to plant the lettuce in a pattern, red, green, red green. I’ve had a garden ever since I was young and we got a house with a little bit of dirt to grow one.
If you’ve never planted a vegetable garden with your kids, your should!
• They love to dig in the dirt.
• They learn lessons from the garden insects and worms. Like who are the bad guys (slugs and grasshoppers for instance) and the good guys (Spiders, Lady Bugs, Praying Mantis and Earthworms. By the way, we never kill them, just move them to a spot that might be better for them to live. We haven’t decided if Rolly Pollies are bad yet...but I have a feeling they’re eating my little sprouts.)
• They use all their senses.
• Another good lesson for children is the waiting and anticipation. Our culture is very impulsive and our society expects everything to happen instantly.
• Kids will often try food that they’ve grown when they’ll never try it on their plate.
One thing you need to know is when to plant. There are veggies that like cold nights and can take a little snow and others that can only be grown in the heat of summer. I recommend the following for a spring garden:
Spinach - grows easily from seeds. Loves the cold. I sometimes buy the plants already started because something eats my baby plants.
Lettuce - also grows easily from seed. But you can get them at the garden center. I like romaine.
Cabbage - buy these at the garden center. I like to get purple and green and make cole slaw in the summer.
Peas - grow from seeds. Some will need support, other types not. I like sugar snaps because you can eat the whole pea, raw or cooked. I also love the flat snow peas. Oregon Sugar Pod is delicious barely cooked with butter!
Scallions - grow from seeds. The little shoots that come up are amazing!
Onions - get a little bag of onions from the garden center.
Potatoes - get some at the garden center. Cut them into fourths and plant them about a foot deep with the eyes facing up. There’s nothing like digging up a potato in the summer. It’s like a treasure hunt.
Broccoli - buy them at the garden center. Eat it fresh or or boiled....great with butter.
Beets - start from seeds. They are so yummy boiled and eaten with melted butter and lemon.
Radish - I’ve never planted them but they’re easy to do from seed.
The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
~Dorothy Frances Gurney
