Gardening with Children - Fun and Tricky

This is the second year that the kids and I have planted an extensive vegetable garden. In march we attended the local "Seedy Saturday". We had spent hours mapping out the garden, planning what would go where, what we would plant again and what new veggies we would try this year. We purchased $70 worth of seeds including a few packs of sunflowers and nasturtiums.

Over the last month we have turned our compost and spread it over our beds. We have spent hours crouched beside raised beds picking weeds. Seedlings have been sprouting on windowsills throughout the house. Finally, last week, the weather warmed up enough that we directly sowed some seeds into the garden beds and transplanted some seedlings.

Each day after school we wander through the gardening squealing with delight at each days growth. In a few weeks we will even be able to eat the first salad greens.

Already the kids have learned many lessons. We have composted kitchen waste and watched it turn in to organic matter that will feed our plants. We have watched as the climate has changed from winter to spring and the soil is workable, that as the weather warms the frost in the morning is replaced with dew. We have seen seedlings sprout in the warmth of indoors before it is warm enough for them to go outside. They have seen that with careful planning we can grow enough food to feed us through the summer and fall.

The biggest lesson they will learn from our garden is on that they won't even realize. It is the lesson i trick them into learning. That eating healthy is fun and delicious. All winter i struggle to get vegetables in their growing bodies. Most days we settle with cucumber and carrots or caesar salad. The vegetables in the grocery store have no appeal to them. They have no attachment to them, they are just "healthy".

As our garden grows we graze on it throughout the days and at night wander out with our basket and pick the days dinner.  We laugh at our salads with flowers in them, bake zucchini bread and pop english peas into our pasta. They eat it all and i smile because i know that one day they will make the connection that vegetables can be good, especially if we grow them ourselves. Maybe, even maybe, one day they will tolerate the vegetables from the market.

This is an original post for Canada Moms Blog. Jess can also be found at drowning in kids.