Spring Into Planting a Home School Garden

Purple pansies and bright orange marigolds almost jump into my basket as I cruise into the local OSH store. It's my favorite time of year as nurseries begin stocking up for spring gardening - delicate pink nemesia, trailing sweet alyssum and tiny violas overflow next to pots of green Swiss chard, lettuce, spicy basil and fragrant young tomato plants. My fingers reach out to caress leaves and petals as I bend to inhale wondrous sweet and spicy scents. The magic of growing things begins anew!

Gardens are great learning environments for children from toddlers to teens. Watching a seed germinate is fascinating to a small child while an older child will have fun using litmus paper to determine soil types. A unit study on growing greens includes everything from plant classification to photosynthesis.

Topics related to gardens can be studied throughout the year, including: organic pest control vs. agribusiness pesticides, pros and cons of square foot vs. row crops, how farming has changed from hand tilling to modern farming methods, composting, building miniature greenhouses, supporting local growers through farmers markets, and so on.

Your garden will depend on the age of your children and your available space. I like container gardening for toddlers and kindergartners. A very young child can be successful with just a few pots placed on a patio or back porch. A packet or two of seeds, a small trowel, some nice garden soil, and an old bucket, box, or other container are all you need to get started.

An old aquarium makes a fun observation post for root vegetables such as radishes and baby carrots. Mini-peat pots are great for starting seedlings indoors. Or try recycling a cardboard milk or orange juice container. (Lay it horizontally and cut off one long section, leaving a rectangular box for growing. Punch a couple drainage holes in the side.)

Allow your child to make a mess! Let him put rocks in the bottom of the container for drainage before dumping in the soil. Show him how to gently plant a couple seeds and let him have a go - even if the whole packet gets spilled. Have a bottle mister handy for the first few weeks of watering. Here's a link to other easy container gardening ideas on the Better Homes and Gardens website.

Elementary age children enjoy raised beds or square foot gardens. Weeding is usually not a big chore in boxed gardens and plants are easy to reach. Mel Bartholomew's classic Square Foot Gardening is a good resource for planting raised beds. I've used his book for years and love the handy references for plant specific growing times and water and sun requirements. You can probably find SFG at your local library or used from an online bookseller. Here's a link to his website: http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

If your children are middle school to high school age use the winter months to plot and plan your garden. Late Winter and early Spring is the time to prepare your soil and plant seedlings indoors. Spring and Summer months will be dedicated to growing, watering, weeding and harvesting. Perhaps your children would enjoy growing pumpkins for Halloween, or raising flowers to sell or share with neighbors. As the end of the growing season approaches in late Summer and early Fall, your children will complete the cycle of seed to harvest by composting and preparing the soil for next year.

For almost three years we participated in a community garden. Our children chose their own vegetables and favorite flowers. Each bed was a reflection of the personality and desires of the child. One box had tall beans growing on a wigwam pole structure, bushy tomatoes, and bright marigolds. Another bed contained tiny blue lobelia, sweet alyssum, wandering cucumbers, and golden squash.

As the plants grew the children learned to tie up beans, keep tomatoes in cages, and harvest zucchini before it was three feet long. We loved the family time spent watering, weeding and wandering along the paths of the community garden. My city children discovered how potato plants, fava beans and Chinese long green beans grew by watching the process and efforts of other gardeners.

Gardens are safe places for children to experience the wild joys of success as well as astonishing failures. The year gophers devoured all of our tomatoes, peas, beans, zucchini, squash, and an assortment of other produce was devastating. We abandoned the garden to the weeds for that year and the next! Something about the miracle of growing things, our former successes, and a longing for the fresh taste of home-grown veggies, however, pulled us back to the magic of growing things - a magic that children of all ages enjoy.

I think I'll look for heirloom tomatoes this year. Maybe I'll try growing one or two on trellises - in large gopher proof pots!