Gardening With Kids - Gardening Gives Food and More

I left off in the last post talking a little bit about harvesting produce with kids from the garden. The garden provides nutritious and delicious food for us to eat....and also preserve if you have abundance.

There is nothing like a fresh garden meal in the summer!

Picking your vegetables right out of the garden and using them in your meal - you can't get any fresher than that!

You might make fresh salsa from your tomatoes, peppers, onions, and cilantro in your garden.

You might enjoy stuffed peppers.

Sweet corn is always a delicious summer treat with any meal.

You might have a wonderful crop of green beans and can them to enjoy during winter.

Of course, picking fresh lettuces, spinach, radish, and green onions for salads is always refreshing.

Allow your children to cook meals with you. Sometimes its hard with little hands, but you might be surprised what they will eat knowing that they helped prepare it from what they helped grow and harvest.

Sometimes room is not available to grow everything you would like, such as fruits, where several plants are needed to pick a larger quantity. Look for local u-pick farms in your area and take your kids there to experience picking at a specialty farm. We go to a blueberry farm and strawberry farm every summer to pick bulk amounts of berries to freeze and make jam from. You might want look for local specialty farms in your area to pick strawberries, blueberries, apples, peaches, pumpkins and more.

For your kids to see these large specialty farms puts a whole new perspective on how and where produce is grown. For example, we just went to a u-pick blueberry farm and driving down the lane to where we would pick, my son said "These are ALL blueberries?!" They can see acres of one type of plant growing. I explained to him that the blueberry farm has workers to pick blueberries for customers to pick up or they can come and pick them themselves. Seeing these specialty farms helps put the whole idea of farm size into perspective. Kids can see that your backyard garden feeds your family. There might be some abundance of certain vegetables that you can share with others. Large farms, such as berry farms or pumpkin patches provides for several families, sometimes several hundred to thousands.

Gardening with kids has several advantages and provides such wonderful experiences.
- It educates them on where food comes from.
- Showing them planting to harvest and getting them involved is a great way to share the farm to    fork process.
- It teaches them what it means to live a sustainable and healthy life.

I hope you will show your kids where food comes from and enjoy the farm to fork process!

This post is sponsored by Indiana's Family of Farmers but all opinions, photos, and ideas are mine.

Gardening with Kids - The Harvest

If you remember in my first post about gardening with kids, I talked about some easy vegetables to grow in your garden and shared some tips how to get your kids involved in the garden.

This post is about the HARVEST! 

The most rewarding part of gardening in my opinion. 

The result of all your hard work in the garden......and you can sample and snack as your picking.

One exciting part about gardening is some vegetables continue to produce bounty after the first, second, and several  pickings.
Like green beans and tomatoes.......

By planting your garden from seed and/or transplants to picking what is produced and involving your kids in the whole process they are learning, seeing, and experiencing gardening with you. What a great way to show them how plants grow and where the food you eat comes from.

So what have you harvested from your garden? What is your kids favorite things to pick?

If you have the space try your hand at backyard gardening. Gardening is a great way to not only include your kids in the process but also to save some money. Who doesn't want to save a little cash on your grocery bill?!

For example:

Tomatoes in the grocery store cost between $1.50 to $3 a pound in the grocery stores. A 4 pack of tomatoes plants at a garden center is less than $2. Each tomato plant can produce roughly 8 to 20 pounds of tomatoes based on growing conditions and if staked and caged.

Potatoes cost around $4 for a 5 pound bag where as you can buy seed potatoes in the spring for 99 cents a pound. Cut those seed potatoes in fourths then plant. Each one will yield on average 5-15 potatoes give your a pretty high return on your seed potato cost.

When you think about your entire garden - lettuce, broccoli, cucumbers, onions, etc the money savings can really add up. 

You will also save money by eating what is in your garden. This may prevent you from going out to eat or will aid in providing ingredients to the dishes you prepare for your meals. Doesn't a dinner of green beans, red potatoes cooked with onion, sweet corn, and broccoli sound great to go with the steaks your having? Save yourself the $40 plus dinner bill going out to eat and have a nice meal from the garden you've grown yourself.

If you don't have room to garden at home, check to see if there is a community garden in your town. These are becoming more and more popular and are a great to take part in. Your children can help in the garden and also enjoy the rewards of gardening with fresh produce. You can also do some patio gardens with tomatoes in pots. Grow lettuce, green onions, spinach together in a spot for your salad needs.

The taste of your backyard garden produce will taste amazingly different that what you can buy in the store.

Stay tuned for the next Gardening with Kids post for different ways to enjoy and preserve what you're growing in your garden.

This post is sponsored by Indiana's Family of Farmers but all opinions, photos, and ideas are mine. 

Gardening with Kids

For those that have followed my blog, you know that we grow produce, have a small CSA program, and are vendors at our local farmers market.

With this comes many hours in the garden! My farmer also works an outside job, so we gather up any available time during the summer months and spend time working in the garden. We have things growing in three different locations. Pumpkins, sweet corn, squash, are over one place. Most of our vegetables are another place, and a mix of things are grown at our house. The kids and I spend many hours of the day being outside, they play and I weed. The kids will go back and forth from playing to help weed for a while, then go back to play.

When we started growing produce in 2006, we started with just a few acres. We have added more every year to where we are now. We have a small greenhouse where we do our seeding to grow the vegetables plants to transplant. We also have a coldframe. We are not large by any means but manageable for what we can handle right now, just the two of us. We grow roughly 4 acres of pumpkins and 6 of produce with hopes to build that up over time.

The kids come with us everywhere and are very much involved with what we do. They are in the gardens with us and attend the farmers market with us. I love how they are seeing the full rotation of the term "Farm to Fork."

The kids help us plant seeds, and transplants

They help weed and maintain the garden

They help pick the produce, clean and package it for CSA, and get ready for the farmers market

They go with us to the farmers market and visit with the customers

They enjoy eating what we have grown.

I love that we are teaching them to grown their own food. I love that they are seeing the complete turn around from planting a seed or plant, to picking the produce when ready, to possibly helping prepare the meal, and then eating it. Even selling the produce we have grown to others for them to eat.

Gardening with your kids is a wonderful summer project. Something for them to get excited about and look forward to. It is always fun for them to check on the garden and see how the plants are growing and if they are producing yet, how produce is growing, and if it is ready to harvest.

Try growing some of these easy vegetables with your kids
-Green Onions
-Kale
-Green Beans
-Lettuce
-Radish
-Carrots
-Peas

Tips for Gardening with Kids

-Let your kids pick out the seeds they want to grow. When you go to the store or garden shop, show your kids the wide variety of seeds they can pick from. Let them help pick some out. Even if it may seem harder to grow, give it a shot. They will be more excited about the plants growing knowing they helped pick them out. Its a great way to get them to try new things as well.

-Let them be a part of the planting and watering process. This is a great time to explain to them how things grow from a tiny seed. Explain to your kids how the seeds need water and sun to grow. They will see how they are helping as the plants grow and start producing. It's always fun to get wet too on those hot days while watering :).

-Let them help harvest the vegetables. This answers that question to "where does our food come from" moment for them. They are able to see that their potatoes come out of the ground and you have to dig to get to them. Or that you wait until the tomato turns red to pick it off the plant. Or that the peppers need to be a little bit bigger. They will feel the sense of accomplishment knowing they helped with the whole process.

-Let them eat the veggies raw and help prepare them for meals. Some kids may not like cooked carrots or cooked peas, but snacking on them from the garden raw they might enjoy them. Let them help you use those fresh veggies they just harvested from the garden and show how you are using them in your meals.

-Let them have fun and enjoy. Let them get dirty :) Get some kid's garden tools and garden gloves. Make DIY garden markers place by the plants in the garden.

Now back out to the garden we go.

This 'Gardening with Kids' series to be continued.......


This post is sponsored by Indiana's Family of Farmers but all opinions, photos, and ideas are mine.