Greening Up Your Thumb: Garden with your children

By Tammy Jones
Sunday, October 19, 2008 1:49 AM PDT

It sure has been cold this week, but it’s a great time to get out into the garden.

I have been helping out with the Junior Master Gardener program and thought I’d give everyone some pieces of advice.

Children are very interested in going out and playing in the dirt. They want to know what you are doing and why.

Children especially love worms, or they especially hate them. So, let them know about worms. Tell them what they do for the soil and how much they are needed in the garden. A really cool fact about worms is they have four hearts. Let your children know this and other facts about the lowly worm.

Children love bugs of all kinds. Even girls want to know about them and want to hold and look at them.

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Find interesting facts about the beneficial bugs in your garden and share them with your children. For example, even if they don’t use them, all insects have wings.

Since helping out with the Junior Master Gardening program, I have become more aware of how much children want to know and how fast they learn when they are interested.

You don’t have to load them down with facts and figures. Just keep it light and interesting, and your children will hang on your every word.

This week, our program planted a tree at the Payette Primary School to teach children how to plant a tree and what kinds of tree shapes interest them.

The children were very interested in helping the tree get started, and then we showed them around the grounds and told them about some of the other trees and shrubs and what kinds of shapes they have.

We had them use their arms and legs to show us how the shapes would look if people had to grow that way.

We also showed them what not to do to trees and how breaking the branches will hurt the tree.

This is a great way to keep your children with you and interested in something you’re interested in.

I know this is different than my usual column, but I just wanted to assure parents, children love being in the garden too. Some of my fondest memories are sitting with my great-grandmother swinging in the garden with her. Just spending time with your children shows them you care and are interested in them.

Here is what Abram L. Urban has to say about gardening: “In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.” Have a great day in the garden.

For questions or comments, Tammy Jones can be contacted at kntjones@mindspring.com.