Harvesting Young Minds — The Rewards of a Family Garden
By Kindy R. Peaslee, RD
Today’s Dietitian
Vol. 8 No. 3 P. 46

Teaching children to appreciate the miracle of growing food is just one of the many benefits of a family garden.

“The art of eating with your children and family and friends truly becomes a mealtime to cherish. Backyard garden fresh produce. Flowers in a pitcher. Cloth napkins just because. The sound of laughter along with silverware. Gratefulness of heart and a spirit of joy.”
— Quoted from The Sacred Kitchen: Higher-Consciousness Cooking for Health and Wholeness by Robin Robertson and Jon Robertson

The National Gardening Association’s (NGA) educational mission is to promote gardening as a way to engage children in active learning, exploration, and fun. Many schools nationwide have embraced this mission by using the school garden concept to steer children away from the influence of a fast-food culture, teach healthy eating habits, and interest them in the outdoors.

Dietitians know American children are not eating enough plant-based foods. How do nutrition professionals teach parents and children the process of planting, watering, growing, harvesting, and preparing the vegetables they eat?

Encouraging parents to create a family garden is one way to reinforce and build on the school garden model and continue to teach kids a connection between a seed and dinner. Through gardening, children are taught an appreciation and understanding of the relationship between food and the environment. In other words, a garden can become a laboratory adventure demonstrating the balance of nature and sustenance.

Adventures in Gardening
Elizabeth Stapleton, RN, a mother of two boys, started a family garden at her Texas home when her sons were babies. They started with a small garden of only a tomato plant and a few herbs. Her sons liked watering the plants and learned to look and smell but not touch.

For the last few years, the Stapleton family (now living in Kentucky) hasn’t had vegetables in their garden—only herbs and flowers. Stapleton recalls, “The boys learned to recognize the names of the plants and which ones were edible and would frequently come in from playing outside with onion breath or mint breath. They loved to go out and pick fresh basil and oregano for their pizza.”

She remembers last summer when each of her sons picked a vegetable to grow. Colin, age 7, picked tomatoes, and Bryan, age 5, chose bell peppers. The boys planted, watered, and watched every day as the plants ripened to see whether there was anything ready to pick. “What a glorious day when the first pepper was ready to eat and the tomatoes were abundant,” Stapleton says. “The boys would go out to play and come back in, having had a snack of fresh tomatoes or peppers straight off the plants.”

Stapleton says the biggest challenge, and the best part as well, is the boys’ exuberance. “It is so hard to be patient, to not dig up the plant to see if it has roots yet, to trust that there really is something happening that we can’t see,” observes Stapleton. “But that exuberance, properly channeled, leads to lots of hard work—digging, moving mulch, watering—and then the diligence pays off even before harvest time, when the plant finally shows out of the ground.”

The Stapleton family’s experience is an example of how a family garden can help children discover the miracle of growing and eating their own food. Both Colin and Bryan felt the satisfaction of a job well done and realized the work they had to put in. Stapleton believes her sons now have a basic understanding of how much effort farmers put forth to grow the food people buy.

Stapleton has also used the family garden to talk about eating food in season—not eating strawberries in the winter, eating peaches and melons in the summer, and waiting until fall for the fresh apples off the trees. In the winter, she says, they eat the canned applesauce, peaches, and tomatoes that they worked hard for in the summer, and look forward to eating fresh foods again in the spring.

“We plan to continue to expand our gardens as we expand the space,” says Stapleton. “We also plan to have the boys grow more and experience the satisfaction of being farmers, at least in a small way.”

Three Steps to Getting Started
For centuries, most families had a “kitchen garden” near the house that provided fruits and vegetables for the household. It usually contained those ingredients that were best when freshly picked and used immediately at the next meal. A kitchen garden was not limited to vegetables; it often included fruits, herbs, and edible flowers. In much the same way today, as we read about in the Stapleton family’s shared experience, parenting and gardening can work together to make a fabulous family kitchen garden.

Ellen Ecker Ogden, cofounder of The Cook’s Garden seed catalog and author of From the Cook’s Garden, says her family’s Vermont garden doubled as a trial ground for the seed catalogue she developed. “When it comes to food, I’ll be the first to admit I spoiled my kids. They eat vegetables only if they come from the garden. Teaching kids to eat well is easy if they learn by nurturing seeds,” says Ogden. She says that because she wanted her kids to enjoy gardening, she let them participate in selecting their own seeds and designing their own garden plot with a playhouse in the center. They came to associate playtime with gardening.

Designate a “Children’s Garden”
The size of the garden will determine how much attention the family will give it. Families often create a garden that is too large, overwhelming, and then becomes a maintenance nightmare. Consider the garden’s purpose and the space needed to grow the plants. How will the garden be watered and who will weed it? A parent may do the bulk of weeding and watering, but each child should have a job (other than playing with the garden hose) that will help maintain the garden throughout the summer. A busy family may consider gardening in raised beds, which are easy to maintain.

Start an adventuresome garden plan with a plant list. Parents should not do this alone but gather the family around to look at colorful seed catalogs. Pictures will prompt children to ask about the foods they may never have seen or tasted. At this point, the kids can decide what they would like to eat from the family garden since it is imperative for them to buy into the family plant list or they won’t eat it later. Choose plants that are family favorites, are well-suited for the geographical climate, and mature quickly so kids won’t lose interest.
Four vegetables that the McKnight family found to be favorites and grow well in their upstate New York garden are green beans, carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Lisa McKnight shared that her 5-year-old son, John, loved being in their garden and would go out by himself every morning to check on new plant growth. Later, as the cucumbers matured, he would measure them. “The freshly grown vegetables never made it to the house. I know my kids would never have eaten cucumbers and green beans unless they had a part in growing them,” says McKnight, who recalls gardening with her dad as a young girl.

Other easy seeds for little hands to sow include corn, beans, and sunflowers. Edible flowers that add wonder to a child being able to eat actual flowers include nasturtium, viola, and chives.

Herbs are an example of plants that can be explored through the senses and are easy to grow and maintain. Children can explore the taste, texture, and scent of culinary herbs by rubbing fragrant leaves with their fingers.

Those living in a cold climate may try planting the majority of their garden crops indoors to get a head start. Kids love to fill pots with soil and plant seeds. Growing healthy seedlings means a family will enjoy a hardy garden and bountiful harvest. Another option is to buy seedlings in the spring at a local farmers’ market.

Plant a Theme Garden
In the context of a theme garden, children can develop the skills to think creatively and critically about global and cross-cultural issues. A “food culture garden” gives children a wonderful opportunity to make people and plant connections.

Ideas for theme gardens are limited only by imagination and creativity. Try a cultural or heritage theme such as an Asian, Mexican, or Italian garden (use an old wagon wheel embedded in the ground for a pizza-shaped framework for “slices” of basil, oregano, parsley, and other Italian herbs). Other theme garden ideas include a butterfly, a snack, a pet garden, or an alphabet to help children remember the common names of flowers. A family can create their own theme garden based on interests, hobbies, or heritage.

Making homemade pizza can become a family garden project by focusing on fresh vegetable ingredients from a pizza theme garden. A fresh garden pizza can be a great way to expand kids’ taste buds. Some toppings may include spinach, red peppers, fresh basil, and zucchini. Plant ideas for a pizza garden include plum tomatoes for sauce and toppings, parsley chopped in sauce for flavor and color, oregano for flavor, garlic for sauce, peppers for topping, and onions for sauce and topping. As part of the summer harvest, host a pizza party and have the children add freshly picked vegetable toppings.

Through the theme of a snack garden, parents can directly address the issue of healthy eating by asking for their children’s input on plants that will produce healthy snack choices. The development of a snack garden screams out for a family discussion. A family could compose a list of favorite snack foods that could come from the garden. The goal is to grow “finger foods” so kids can go to the garden, pick their food, wash it, and eat while the sun is still in the food.

A pet garden is for the whole family, including the animals. Pets such as rabbits, guinea pigs, and cats especially love fresh greens from the garden. Grow greens (beet greens, lettuce, spinach) for rabbits, guinea pigs, and some birds; carrots for rabbits and horses; catnip for cats; and sunflowers to feed wild birds in the winter months.

Make sure the children keep a journal about all the different garden themes. This way they can revisit the journal and share with their class in school or read it during the cold winter months of future garden planning.

Buy Child-Size Tools
These small tools are a great way to interest kids in garden chores. Toddlers will run for their own watering can whenever they see dad or mom watering the tomatoes. Kids like to use tools and will need some small, sturdy gardening tools and gloves. Many department stores sell plastic gardening toys that are fine for toddlers who want to pretend they are gardening with their parents. Check out garden catalogs or a local garden center for solid, child-size gardening tools for preschool- through grade school-aged children. The smaller tools are a great investment for children who will be able to use them for at least one or two years.

By this point, you should be inspired as an RD to encourage parents to grow a family garden. Or, how about this summer getting your own small tykes to experience growing food to be enjoyed at family meals? Consider that often even the fussiest eaters are happy to consume the fruits of their own labor. Remember to keep your garden colorful, grow quick-maturing crops, appeal to the sense of smell, and make it fun by building playhouses and teepees in the garden for a place to play in the shade. Grazing takes on a whole new meaning when kids begin eating from the garden instead of the cookie jar. Watch as children acquire a sense of pride and valuable insight into exactly what is required to make plants grow.

For the fourth year, the NGA will promote National Garden Month in April. This year, the NGA and the City of New York Parks and Recreation Department will present a weeklong celebration in New York City, culminating in a one-day festival on April 29 in Union Square. For more information, visit www.nationalgardenmonth.org.

— Kindy R. Peaslee, RD, is the founder of Kindy Creek Promotions, an upstate New York-based marketing firm committed to increasing wellness thinking and making it easier for families to identify food and beverage choices that contribute to healthy lifestyles.

---

Quick-Maturing Vegetables
• Beets: 50 days

• Broccoli: 50 days (from transplant)

• Bush beans: 50 days

• Leaf lettuce: 45 days

• Peas (early varieties): 55 days

• Radishes: 25 days

• Scallions: 40 days

• Spinach: 50 days

• Summer squash: 48 days

— Source: Gardening with Children by Beth Richardson

Resources
Catalogs:
• The Cook’s Garden Seed Catalog
www.cooksgarden.com
800-457-9703

• Gardening with Kids
www.kidsgardening.com
800-538-7476

• The Kitchen Garden Seed Catalog
www.kitchengardenseeds.com
860-567-6086

• Neat Solutions
www.neatsolutions.com
888-577-NEAT

Books
• Gardening with Children by Beth Richardson

• Grow Your Own Pizza: Gardening Plans and Recipes for Kids by Constance Hardesty

• Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children by Sharon Lovejoy

• The Sacred Kitchen: Higher-Consciousness Cooking for Health and Wholeness by Robin Robertson and Jon Robertson

Order the following items from:
www.kidsgardening.com
800-538-7476

1. Real Tools Sized for Young Gardeners: A six-piece tool collection includes one shovel, one hoe, one steel rake, one leaf rake, one hand trowel, and one hand cultivator; $44.95

2. My First Garden Kit: A sturdy, child-size tote has pockets to keep tools in place and comes with a kid-size trowel and rake and a spray bottle. The kit also includes a seed packet and gardening journal. For ages pre-K to 5; $19.95

3. Seed-Saving Kit: Teach kids about the seed-to-plant-to-seed cycle. The kit comes in a tin and includes 10 airtight tins with lids, labels, a marking pencil, stakes, envelopes, and a seed guide; $24.95