Grow a Family Garden:

We made it through winter and now we are being rewarded with longer days filled with sun, warmth, and the smell of fresh growth!  There’s nothing I love more than planting the first seeds or transplants of veggies in the spring.  And there’s no better way to have family fun than digging in the dirt and watching stuff grow that you can eventually eat!

Every time my nephew comes to my house we have to pick carrots and he can barely wait for them to be cleaned before he has them in his mouth.  We’ve even convinced him to eat more veggies at dinner by saying they were grown in Jamie’s garden!  Our two neighbor girls, on the other hand, can’t keep their hands off our spring peas and strawberries.

In a garden, you can be active, relax, and spend time together.  Growing vegetables or herbs teaches children that plants, like people, need food and water to grow and stay healthy.  Caring for plants helps develop responsibility.  It also builds self-esteem when kids see what they can grow!

What you need:

• For Container Growing: milk and juice cartons, empty cans, empty bleach bottle, dishpan, plastic bucket  (be creative – I’ve seen people grow out of an old pair of boots, a hollowed out television, or a wheelbarrow!)
• For Growing in the Ground: A 2-foot plot is big enough.  Start small this year, you can always expand, but it’s hard to reduce the size.  Hint: preparing soil is hard for young children.
• Child-size tools: watering can, hose, small shovel, old spoon and fork, small rake, digging stick, hoe and spade, sticks to label plants
•  Seeds or seedlings (young plants) Hint: Ask around, many times people have extra seed packets they are no longer using!
• Water for your hose or watering can
• Soil for container gardens.  You can get this at any of your local hardware stores.
• Fertilizer: compost, worm castings – this is optional and can typically be found at your local hardware store as well.

Easy foods for kids to grow:

• Beets,* carrots,* cherry tomatoes,* collard greens,* cucumbers,* green beans,* herbs,* lettuce,* okra, onions, peppers,* spinach,* tomatoes

* = grows easily in a container

Most kids are proud of what they grow.  Even when gardening is messy, your child is learning.  It is okay if the garden is not planted perfectly.  He or she can help with almost any gardening task, such as:

• Pick the vegetables or herbs we will grow
• Find a sunny place
• Make the soil ready in a container or in the garden
• Plant seeds or small plants in the soil
• Water plants when they are thirsty
• Measure plants as they grow and vegetables form.  Talk about it!
• Pull the weeds (get them excited about this early!)
• Pick vegetables or herbs when they are ready
• Wash the food
• Make something to eat with your family.  Use the food you pick
• Eat and Enjoy it!

If you have further questions about starting a garden at your home contact a University of Minnesota garden expert through this website:

http://www1.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/ 

Information for article taken from the following website: http://teamnutrition.usda.gov/resources/Nibbles/Nibbles_Newsletter_33.pdf

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Jamie Bain is a Health and Nutrition Extension Educator for the East Metro. Her passions are working with youth, local foods access, and cooking healthy delicious food (preferably from the garden!).  She believes that communities are only as healthy as their food systems. Before working with Extension, she worked for a variety of nonprofit organizations in the metro area with a focus of holistic health for all and received her Master’s degree in Public Health Nutrition from the University of Minnesota in 2006. You can link to the Extension Health and Nutrition website at:  http://www.extension.umn.edu/health/