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GROW VEGGIES FROM VEGGIES
After my daughter, Lily, and I planted our first
vegetable garden together, she emerged with a better sense of where her food
came from -- but she still thought seeds originated in a paper packet. To
disabuse her of that notion, I let her rescue a few tomato seeds from
her tossed salad, dry them on paper towels, and stow them away until next
spring. By the time her first seedlings poked up, she'd absorbed an important
lesson about the circle of life.
Tip: If you want to save your own seeds, start with green beans or
peppers -- reliable and easy to grow -- and store them in paper bags in a cool,
dry place.
WATCH A PLANT TAKE ROOT
Gardening often demands patience -- a quality that
kids, alas, don't always have in ample supply. So when Tracy Parker, a former
elementary school teacher, was starting seeds
indoors with her three sons, she adapted a classroom experiment that shortened
the wait. "The kids plant their seeds in clear plastic cups, close
to the side," she explains -- a technique that affords them a worm's-eye view of the action. "They love to see the roots
forming," says
Tracy
,
"and they get so excited when the sprout pops out."
CHART A GARDEN'S GROWTH
Families know all about charting their kids' growth, so it's not surprising
that some of them have found fun ways to chart their garden's growth too. For
instance, each year the Cordeiros-- Jacob, age 6, Sarah, 4, mom Kimberly, and dad John -- track the
growth of a sunflower. First, they trace their bodies and draw a 10-foot ruler
on butcher paper. Then they measure the sunflower weekly and track its
progress next to the ruler and family members' heights. The project is more
than mere fun: "Because they're so excited to see the sunflower
grow," explains Kimberly, "they take great care of it -- and all the
plants around it."
MAKE WEEDING A GAME
How do you get your kids to "weed" when they
might not know what a weed is? For Kim Justen,
the solution was to engage their sense of play. "When my kids were little
and wanted to help in the garden, we gave each of them one variety of weed and asked them to pull up only those plants that matched it," she says.
Years later, her kids -- Kathleen, age 9, and David, 7 -- are still playing the
game. "They have fun," says Kim, "and I get help in the
garden."
OPEN A FAMILY FARMERS' MARKET
To spark a passion for gardening in her two younger
boys, Loriel Karlik
appealed to their entrepreneurial spirit. After offering them their choice of
vegetable seeds, she staked out a plot for them and offered to pay farmers'
market prices for their produce. The boys devised business plans, one
planting zucchini for its abundance and long harvest, the other, radishes for a
quick return, followed by squash and cucumbers for diversity. The end result:
horticultural and financial bounty -- and a love of gardening that Loriel hopes will last a lifetime. |
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