How to Bond with your Grandchildren

 

Gardening is a great way to bond with your children or grandchildren.  As you see in the featured photograph they do not need to garden only to get involved playing is a critical part of getting them in the garden.

For me, it all started with our Granddaughter nearly 12 years ago.  I built her a garden box that was hers to plant and harvest.  Now at 13, she loves to pick and eat our blueberries and even still plant vegetables in the garden such as the peas we planted this past year.

My hope is that when she is on her own she will have her own garden that she can share with others and the gardening adventure will continue on with a new generation.

This summer I had the great pleasure of having my 2-year-old grandson over to our house every week so I introduced him to gardening.

Every day that he came over he was excited to go into the garden to help me plant, inspect and harvest our fruit and vegetables.

I am not sure who gets more enjoyment from the time we spend in the garden each day together but I definitely love watching him learn to garden.

As we move into the winter months and the fruit and vegetables are just about gone in the garden he asks where our tomatoes and other vegetables are for him to pick and eat.  Today we picked the last of the tomatoes which are his favorite for him to eat.

This year I built a greenhouse and he called it Papa’s little house and asks to go into my little house whenever he comes over.  All of these memories are ones I will record for him to remember when he is older since he is probably too young to retain them yet at 2 years old.

As I teach him about gardening I know that it is important to not force it on him so I allow him to play in his sandbox, get wagon rides and chase our dog Lilly and when he feels like gardening he joins me to instill the love of gardening.

As I teach him about gardening I show him everything I can from the fragrances of herbs like mint, rosemary, and basil by rubbing the leaves to release the incredible fragrances they hold.

As we walk through the garden if he does not recognize the plant he asks “Papa what is this”? which brings me great joy.  He loves eating vegetables more than any other food at mealtime.  As we grew cucumbers and showed him that we could make pickles he now wants dill pickles with everything.

If you are wanting your children to eat their vegetables you can do this by getting them out in your yard to grow them in the garden with you.

How to get them started

Ask them what vegetable or fruit they like to eat and want to grow in the garden.

These are bean seeds that my grandson planted, after placing the seeds in the row we covered them with dirt and put them to sleep, which he really enjoyed doing.

Remember it does not have to be perfect, if some of the seeds are too close or not in the correct place in the row you can always thin them later.  Make it fun and show them the progress each week after they have planted the seeds.

If you are planting from seeds here are some of the easiest for them to handle that have larger seeds.  The last thing you want to do is make it difficult for them to handle the seeds to plant.

Vegetable Seeds

Beans

Peas

Squash

Cucumbers

Vegetable Plants

Tomatoes- Sungold, Cherry, Prairie Fire

Sweet Peppers

Onions

Fruit Seeds

Pumpkins

Fruit Plants

Strawberries

Blueberries

Grapes

Thornless Blackberries

Thornless Raspberries

If you have the space dedicate one area to a garden just for them if not let them know that the garden area is for both of you so that they know it is their garden.

If you are wanting to grow carrots with your children or grandchildren it is a little more difficult but I will provide some information in a separate link to an article that I will focus on growing carrots that will make it easier and more fun for everyone.

Tools needed

Children’s gloves

Small hand tools

Garden basket and watering bucket

Make the garden fun and exciting to build a lifetime gardener with your children and grandchildren.  You will cherish every minute that you spend teaching them about gardening and eating the bounties you harvest with them.