Family Gardening: Garden Maintenance

I hope you’re having fun in the garden with your family! Now that the planting is done, the focus shifts more to maintenance. This is sometimes regarded as a chore, but I have to admit that I really enjoy it. It’s one of the few excuses to just putter around in your garden observing the fruits of your labor. It never ceases to amaze me how much plants can grow and change in a short time—it’s a miracle in every plant!
While there is a lot to do in the garden, endless weeding doesn’t come across as appealing to anyone—least of all your kids. In order to prevent garden maintenance from seeming onerous, try the following tips to keep it fun and engaging for the whole family:

• Mulch magic. Mulch is one of your best friends in the garden—it cuts way down on weeds, and helps conserve water in the soil as well. There is no single best material for mulch—I recommend an organic material that will break down over time and improve the soil, as well as a material that is locally available. This could be pine straw here in the southeast, or bark mulch, or even a thick layer of newspaper covered with leaves or straw. At my own home I have a lot of trees, so we create our own mulch by shredding the autumn leaves with the lawnmower. The result is a great mulch, and I feel good that I am not adding bags of leaves to the local landfill. I add a thick layer of leaves 2-4 inches deep to all my garden beds in the fall. As the leaves break down they enhance the soil by adding wonderful organic matter. When I plant new flowers and veggies in the spring I dig through the leafy mulch, turning some of it into the soil in the process, and then add more after planting to prevent weeds from taking hold.
• Weeding wizards. Yes, weeding is a part of gardening, but it doesn’t have to be a burdensome chore. Keep it light and fun. First off, don’t let the weeds get to be taller than your children before you pull them; instead, make a tour of the garden once or twice a week to scout for new little encroaching weeds and pull them while they’re small. If your child has a difficult time distinguishing between weeds and sprouts of plants that you want, then focus in on just one type of weed at a time. Proclaim a ‘weed of the day’ and show them a sample, then have a contest to see who can find the greatest number of that specific weed. (It goes without saying that you should choose whatever weed is most prolific in the garden for your weed of the day.) The winner becomes the Weeding Wizard for the day. It can become a kind of a scavenger hunt, providing a lot of fun and some great quality time in the garden for you and your kids.
• Dig in! Kids simply love to dig. They can expend endless energy and will generate great enthusiasm digging around and playing in the soil. There are a lot of discoveries to make in digging: small leaves, twigs, and rocks that make up the soil… different types and textures of soil… the joys of mud pies when water is added… engineering feats to be achieved in creating holes, tunnels, and caves for small imaginary villages… insects that make their home in the soil… and best of all, earthworms! If you have young kids—toddlers to middle elementary—leave a little patch of your garden open as a digging zone. They will want to continue their digging adventures long after the planting is done!
• Wonders of water. Kids like watering even more than they like digging. Try to make it as easy as you can for them to water their plants. It’s a wonderful natural lesson in taking responsibility, and helps them learn to think beyond themselves in caring for living things. Plus, it’s just fun! I worked with a daycare center a few years back to create a small garden for their kids, and watering was their absolute favorite activity. To make it easy for them to be independent in their watering, we placed a large storage bin under the faucet and used it as a sort of watering trough. When it was garden maintenance time, we simply turned on the faucet and let the bin fill with water. We kept a bunch of small child-sized watering cans by the bin, so that the kids could help themselves to water. Several of them at a time could fill their watering cans in the watering trough. They could handle the diminutive watering cans with ease, and the small volume that the containers held ensured that they would not overwater and ‘drown’ the plants. They were wonderful caretakers, and loved that they could be independent and do it themselves.

What tips and tricks do you have up your sleeves to help keep garden maintenance fun for kids and the entire family? I’d love to hear them!

Happy Gardening!
Dr. Cindy

Family Gardening: What to Plant?

There are so many plants to choose from these days, it can be hard to know where to start. For those of you planning and planting a family garden with your kids (or with a group of kids such as a summer day camp, scout group or church group), here are a few ideas to help frame some interesting options that kids will enjoy:

• Giants, Minis, and Oddballs. When planting vegetables, think about oddities or extremes. They can be used to create a vegetable garden that is fun and interesting for kids. Also, most kids are more willing to try eating something that they have grown themselves, especially if it’s something different from the norm. Try planting giant varieties planted next to miniature ones to create a contrast, or strange-looking varieties. For a nice miniature tomato, try growing cherry tomatoes (my personal favorite is Sungold) right next to a giant variety like Park’s Whopper. Yard-long beans—an Asian type of string bean that truly does grow very long—are a fun bean to plant on a trellis or bamboo teepee. A nice colorful vegetable is the beautiful Swiss Chard called Bright Lights—the multi-hued stems look like old-fashioned ribbon candy, and create a lovely little rainbow right in your garden! You’ll be looking for recipes to try with your new-found crop. Don’t forget squash—it’s a great plant that is extremely easy to grow, so you can almost guarantee success. A few squash will produce enough to feed your entire family and all your friends, and there are some fun ‘different’ varieties, too, such as a small round squash called Eight Ball.
• Floral Bounty. There are endless flowers that would be ideal for a children’s garden area. Zinnias would top my list (any kind), along with Sunflowers (Helianthus) and Tithonias, also called Mexican Sunflowers—they have bright orange daisy-like flowers, and the leaves are fuzzy and shaped like a dinosaur’s foot/paw. (No, I’ve never seen a dinosaur’s foot/paw-- which is it, anyway? However, this is what the kids I’ve worked with say, and it really does look like a three-toed foot. They make great dinosaur leaf prints…) There are so many options it’s hard to limit—it really just depends on the space you have available and the amount of sun or shade you have. Take your child and let them pick out a few flowers to try. It's a great outing. Plus, experimenting with something new fosters a wonderful aptitude for exploration and discovery—key components to critical thinking that are essential for developing young scientists as well as creative artists!
• Herbal Delights. Create a fragrant sensory experience by making sure to plant a few herbs in your garden. Many have fragrant foliage, and it is simply delightful to brush against them and release their scent as you are working in the garden or just strolling through. Plus, you have the added benefit of having fresh herbs just outside your door that you can add to your meals. Basil is extremely easy to grow, as is mint, rosemary, and lemon balm. All of these—and many more—are very kid-friendly, and very commonly available at your local nursery. I especially like lemon balm and mint, as you can steep them and make your own herbal tea, or use them to flavor your iced tea. Some folks say that they will ‘invade,’ but I have never found them to be truly invasive—they just like to spread out. Makes me feel like a really successful gardener! They are easy to keep in check—you just pull up the surface runners, and then you have some to share with a friend.
• Heirloom Heritage. Try planting some heirloom varieties. These are plants that have been grown for generations, with seed collected and passed down from one person to another. With heirloom plants you can collect and save your own seed to plant again next year, which is a fun and interesting activity in and of itself at the end of the season—a wonderful scavenger hunt in your own backyard! Heirloom vegetables, in particular, are some of the best-tasting varieties of vegetables you can grow. Many companies carry heirloom varieties along with hybridized ones—heirloom tomatoes like Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter are popular, and there are many more available. Plant several different types and conduct your own taste test—they will be the best-tasting tomatoes you ever put in your mouth!
• Gourd-geous. Last but not least, grow some gourds. These are just plain fun—they grow very rapidly, and it’s amazing to see just how fast the gourds grow and take shape. Harvest some for bird houses or other crafts. You and your kids will all be enchanted to have a bird house you grew yourself! There are an endless variety of vegetables, herbs, and flowers to plant—I could go on and on. The point is to have fun experimenting and try some new things.

Obviously, this list of plants could go on and on. I would love to hear what the favorite plants are in your family garden. What do your kids enjoy? What do you have the most success with? How do you use the harvest from your garden? Please write and let me know!

Happy Gardening!

Dr. Cindy

Family Gardening: Planning a Garden with Your Kids

It’s late April, and the spring gardening season is in full swing! The average last frost date (April 18th here in the Charlotte area) has passed. While this doesn’t guarantee that we won’t have another frost, it’s a pretty good bet. So, consider the ribbon cut and get out there and dig!

Planting a garden is one of the best—and most economic—family activities I know. If you want to have a great adventure with your kids this summer, consider planting a garden together. You’d be surprised how many special moments you and your children will have checking on and maintaining your garden together.

Although there are endless ways to enjoy gardening with your children, I’ve accumulated some tips and advice as I’ve worked with kids and families over the years. I’ve listed a few below that relate to garden planning. I’ll post a few more each week for the next couple of weeks on what to grow, and garden maintenance. (It could grow to more... we'll see!)

Shared ownership. We all like a say in what goes on around us, and kids are no exception. The garden is the perfect arena to include them in decision-making; besides, they will wander out to the garden much more often if they feel like they have some ownership in it. Let them in on the decisions about what to grow. Provide a few choices for them to select from, or peruse the garden catalogs or local garden center together. Ask everyone in the family to choose one crop, or perhaps everyone gets to choose one type of tomato and then have a contest to see whose tomato produces the most fruit.

Start small. If you are planning your first garden, start small. You don’t need a half-acre in order to produce a lot of food. In fact, you will be surprised how much produce you can harvest in a small plot. I recommend starting with a 4’ x 4’ plot, or a few containers on the patio or balcony. Better to smart small and have fun with it than to create a large garden that becomes a chore to maintain.

Don’t worry about perfect. Perfect gardens really only exist in books—don’t worry about it! Your rows do not have to be perfectly straight, nor your garden weed-free. Instead, focus on enjoying your garden together. Family gardening time is some of the best family time you’ll get—no TV, and just each other for company. You’ll have actual conversations! The important part in planting is that you do it together and keep it fun—a few minutes at a time a few times a week may be all the time you and your kids have to spend in the garden, and that’s okay. The entire garden doesn’t have to be planted at one time. Let it fit your schedule—you’ll all be happier in the end. You can always add more later or next year.

Be adventurous. Don’t be afraid to try new things together—one of the best lessons you can give your kids is to model being an enthusiastic and curious learner yourself. Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking you have to know all the answers; instead, teach your kids the joy of trying something new and waiting to see how it will turn out. Remember, all great gardeners have killed a lot of plants as they learn and discover what works in their gardens. If you see a plant that looks interesting, but that you don’t know how to grow, that’s okay—investigate it with your child and then try it if it seems appropriate for your conditions. Gardening is an ongoing investigation, and you never stop learning.


The most important thing to keep in mind is to keep your garden project interesting and engaging for you and your kids. Have fun with your kids in your garden this summer, and turn them into lifelong gardeners. It’s one of the best things you will ever do as a parent!

Have some feedback, or some additional tips based on your own experience? I would love to hear them—please post a response and help foster family gardening.

Thanks for reading-- now get out there and garden!

Cindy