Parenting in Living Color

A Dad's Garden Days 5/16/06

My husband, Dan, is the guest writer of this month's Parenting in Living Color. Dan is a wonderful husband and a joyful father. He works hard at Seeds of Change, an organic and heirloom seed company in Santa Fe. You might think, therefore, that Dan has been gardening all his life. In truth, while he is very knowledgable about his products, Dan is relatively new to propogating, germinating and harvesting. Somehow that is what makes this edition even more endearing to me. I hope that you and your family enjoy time outside together and enjoy a rich and fruitful month!

A Dad's Garden Days by Dan Sandweiss

School has almost ended, Father’s Day is approaching and the outdoors is beckoning. This is the time to make the most of our garden and our relationship with our kids. But what’s a dad to do? There’s no time during the week and weekends seem like a whirlwind of regular chores. Try some of the ideas below to integrate your time with your kids into your time with your garden. Your children will love it, you’ll find they can be more helpful than you expected and you’ll strengthen your bond with those little rascals.

Physical Labor: Your kids love to use their bodies outside. Although their strength may be no match for yours, they can feel a great sense of accomplishment by helping load the wheelbarrow, filling up the watering can or even digging holes for transplanting seedlings. When you go into the garden with your child, make sure you put on your gloves and ask them to put on theirs. In addition to helping them feel that this is a special activity, it will protect their hands from goatheads, scratches and thorns.

A Trip to the Nursery: My kids love looking at all of the plants, pots and gardening supplies during our trips. If you can handle a little begging that may result from their excitement about the little pails and shovels, you can turn the trip into an educational lesson. Help your kids read the markers for the plants and explain the Latin names. Show them the difference between organic amendments and pesticides, and synthetic ones. Explain how various garden tools are used.

Easy Seedlings: Explain that he/she is going to turn a seed into a seedling to plant in the garden. Wrap newspaper strips around a cup to shape into a pot or purchase a Paper Pot Maker Provide your child with a bit of soil to put in the paper pot and a few cucumber seeds. Water the pot well and enclose in a resealable plastic bag. Leave the bag on a windowsill and have your child check it every day. After 4 or 5 days, you will see excitement in your child’s eyes as the first sprouts begin to emerge. Relatively soon, the plant will be large enough to put in a pot. Help your son or daughter with this activity and watch with pride as he or she takes ownership of the plant and calls your attention to its continued growth.

A Garden Meal: Though most kids profess to dislike vegetables, I find that this is a myth when it comes to freshly picked produce from your own garden. My children couldn’t get enough of the carrots they helped pick from my cousin’s backyard garden. So, enlist their help in pulling tomatoes off the vine, yanking carrots from the ground or pulling beans off the plant. Better yet, have a hose handy so they can wash a piece of produce and immediately pop it in their mouths. And kids love to help make meals. After they’ve picked some veggies from the garden, let them pop peas out of the skins or spin lettuce in the spinner or pull apart pieces of basil for the pasta sauce. Don’t forget to compliment them at the dinner table on the fruits of their labors.

A Fun Book It’s always fun to read a book to your kids, especially when it’s during the day and neither of you is tired or cranky. Pick one about children involved in the garden. Seeds of Change recently collaborated with Mitten Press to publish I Saw It in the Garden, by Martin Brennan, a book about a girl and her grandpa planting in the garden. Linnea in Monet’s Garden by Cristina Bjork describes a girl’s trip to Paris to learn about Monet’s lily paintings. Grandpa’s Garden by Judith Caseley is about a girl who helps her grandfather plant a garden, then harvest the vegetables to make a delicious lunch. Finally, The Pickle Patch Bathtub, by Fran Kennedy, recounts the true story of children who grow cucumbers so they can buy a bathtub for their farm. Its illustrations make the story very entertaining.

No matter the method you choose for bonding with your kids over gardening, all of you are sure to come out of it with a smile on your faces. Enjoy your Father’s Day and the rest of the summer with your children.