Gardening with Kids

Spring time in San Antonio is tremendous.  Beautiful weather, coveted rain showers, Fiesta, and pre-mosquito backyard time. Grab a glass of wine and head out back with your kiddos to start your summer garden.

First, pick a spot.  Spend some time, glass in hand, chatting with your kids about the sunniest spot in the yard.  Take a few days watching the spot together and see how much sun it gets on an average day.  Call the kids out at random times to observe the spot.

Decide how big your garden spot will be and what kind of garden you will have.  A raised bed? This is a good time to talk about what you want to plant and grow.  Tomatoes love raised beds with deep, rich soil.  Sketch it out, Google it, look at magazines for border ideas.  The more you engage your kids in the planning phase, the more ownership they will have in the hard work manual labor part of the project.  Since your kids are likely more high-tech than you, use one of the many free online tools or apps to plan your garden.  Your kids will love any excuse to get back on their electronics!

I am a low tech garden planner. Pen and paper for me!

I decided on a stacked rock border and a vegetable and herb garden.  I primarily grow my herbs in containers on my front porch for easy access when cooking, but this year called for an entire garden section dedicated to mint.  Mojitos, anyone?

Dad helped us out and did the most difficult part of turning up the area destined to be our garden.  This garden is a true family affair and that’s what it’s all about! The rock border was probably the most exciting part of the process for the kids.  Take your kids to a rock material yard and turn them loose.  It’s heaven on earth for a kid.  Talk about cheap entertainment.  Quartz rocks, lava rocks, boulders the size of our car….exciting stuff for an 8-year-old.  Dudette insisted on pulling the cart with 300 lbs of stones to the weigh station, to the amazement of the workers.  They were so amused by our kids that they let them take all kinds of cool small rocks home with them.

Rejuvinate the dirt in your soon-to-be garden by using some good quality gardening soil.  I frequent a nearby nursery, Shades of Green, and love the organic soil they sell.  I had no idea how much soil I needed for my new space, but I knew the dimensions and that I wanted about 2 inches of soil on top of the existing dirt.  I had stacked my flat rocks two deep for a raised bed effect.  We put Dude’s math skills to the test and guesstimated how many bags we needed.  We were conservative in our soil purchase and made a second trip to finish the job with the perfect amount.

Almost ready to plant!

Next make your plant choices.  Do you want to start from seed or use already established plants?  I started too late to start from seed (and I don’t have that much patience).  Kids like the sense of accomplishment from seeing plants growing in their garden after that much hard work.  Maybe I am projecting, but whatever.  I want to sit back with my glass of wine (it will be a mojito next week after that mint I mentioned takes off) and look at something other than just dirt for a couple of weeks.  We did compromise and planted a row of fast growing green onion bulbs to satisfy the purists.

Tomatoes, cantaloupe (Dudette’s choice), yellow squash, okra, green onions & arugula were our choices.  The herb section has thyme, flat leaf parsley, lavender, and did I mention mint?  Dudette is a gardening pro and expertly loosened all of the roots before planting each plant in the hole she dug.  With 2 inches of soil on top, it’s fairly easy even for a little one to use a spade and create a good spot for each new plant.

Dudette finishing up in the herb section of the garden.

Dudette has her own set of gardening tools. The kid loves yard work…she legitimately gets irritated with me if I sneak out of the house without her to do yard work and often proclaims “I love pulling weeds!” (no, I’ve not had too many mojitos as I write this- she likes to pull weeds, it’s true).  The Easter Bunny brought her new gardening gloves in her basket.  Now if she were only tall enough to push the lawn mower….

These gloves are at Wal-Mart for less than $3. Perfect!

Now that your garden has been planted, talk about a schedule for watering and checking for weeds and pests.  The lure of potential bugs, especially large gross looking green tomato horn worms, should get most kids interested in continuing to care for their new plants.  And of course, the excitement of picking tomatoes and watching cantaloupes grow bigger each day, should keep their attention too.

Our masterpiece!

The best part of this spring gardening project was that we all chipped in and did it together.  We planned it together, created it together, and now we will enjoy it together!

Do your kids share your love of gardening?  What fun or exciting projects do you do together in your yard?  I would love for you to share in the comments below!

 

Bridget
Bridget was born and raised in San Antonio and moved back here after college and law school. She is a wife, full-time attorney, wrangler of four kids ages 15, 13, 3 and almost 2. As both a stepmom and mom, her life and house is always full and she loves to share about blended family life. Bridget is also passionate about infertility advocacy after having suffered multiple miscarriages and multiple rounds of IVF. Now with her stepkids, rainbow baby, and surprise baby, her family is complete and she is soaking up every minute of motherhood!