Make Gardening a Family Affair - Part 3: Get the Whole Family Involved

It may seem easier to do some of the harder steps of growing a garden by yourself - especially if you’ve had some experience gardening and can get it done faster. However, if you want to garden together as a family, and receive all of the benefits this can bring, it’s important that the others in your family also know how to do all of the steps.

They’re more likely to appreciate the end result more when they’ve been involved every step of the way. Also, if they only know the easy steps, they won’t know everything they need to know to begin their own garden!

By letting your family help in every step, they learn all the basics of gardening. They also learn the tips like when the best time is to plant certain seeds and what type of fruits and vegetables are the easiest to grow. They’ll learn how to prepare the soil and how to test it to make sure that it’s ready for growing things.

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Your family will enjoy telling friends that they know how to garden. Many of the fruits and vegetables can be harvested and then canned or frozen. You can share them that way or in their fresh-from-the-garden state with family or friends. Giving a basket full of freshly grown food to someone can also teach your family about the importance of sharing and giving.

When the family is working in the garden, especially when it’s gardening with children, you want to make sure that they’re actually working in the gardening during that time. You want to check on them, but you also want to make sure that you’re giving them the freedom to learn and make discoveries on their own. It can be easy to hover over your children and tell them what to do every step of the way.

However, that should only be done the first few times you work in the garden together. If you continually hover, your child won’t learn how to work on his own and his accomplishment at having grown fruits and vegetables won’t be “just his.”

It’s important that you teach your child every step, make sure he or she understands, and then let him work on his own. If you’re worried that your child won’t remember to do certain things in the garden, you can make a colorful calendar for him!

Mark the days when he needs to water the plants or pull weeds. This way, you don’t have to continually remind him and he feels as though he’s accomplishing something on his own.

If you’re working in the garden with your spouse, remember that everyone has a way they like to do things, and not everything has to be done "your way." While this can be challenging if you're used to gardening on your own, if you approach it the right way, this can actually bring a fun and unique twist to gardening as a family.

Keep in mind that even though the garden might be hard work, it should still be something that all of you find fun and enjoy doing together. One of the ways that you can make sure your family enjoys gardening is to make sure that you do what you can to have fun throughout the process!

Next week, we'll cover some ways to make gardening fun for the whole family!