5 Tips for Growing a Garden as a Family
Gardening with your kids is one of the best ways to create lasting memories and connect with one another. It also offers more opportunities for teaching problem-solving, responsibility, self-sufficiency, and accomplishment.
But where do you begin? Here are a few tips you can use to get started on this great outdoor activity.
Start small
It’s understandable to want to go all-out with your family garden, but you can actually benefit from starting off small. Starting small gives you the ability to plan out your garden as your plants start to grow. When you’re planting seeds, it’s all too easy to plant them too close together because they’re so small. But as the plants grow, they can end up overcrowded.
Use window boxes and containers to plant seeds and to give them time to root. Wood pallets can also serve as great plant holders because they can hold more weight than plastic, accommodating up to 3,000 pounds. That’s a lot of plants!
Choose kid-friendly plants
One way to make your garden kid-friendly is by choosing plants that are fun for the senses. Kids love plants that are fun to touch like chenille and lambs’ ears. They also love plants that smell good like geraniums, hyacinth, and basil.
Homegrown produce is also a great way to give your kids a sense of accomplishment, especially when you let them do the harvesting. Harvesting potatoes and pulling up carrots let your kids dig for hidden treasure like tiny garden pirates.
Watch out for your septic system
If you’re one of the 21 million households in the U.S. using septic systems, make sure that you don’t place your garden over it. While walking over a drain field isn’t a problem, placing a raised flower bed over the system can cause some serious damage. Make sure that if you have a septic system that your garden is no closer than 10 feet away from the drain field.
Use kid-friendly garden products
Your first instinct when you’re trying to keep pests and weeds away from your family garden is to use pesticides and weed killers. But these chemical products can be dangerous to use around your kids. Fortunately, green cleaning products have skyrocketed by 35% recently so you can find natural pesticides to help keep nasty bugs at bay without putting your family at risk.
Set up an ID guide for bugs and critters
Not every bug that enters your garden is a pest. One way you can make gardening more fun for your kids is by setting up an ID guide. Your kids can identify bugs or animals they see in the garden, write down the name of the critter, and draw a picture of it. From there, you can all read about the critter’s role in the garden.
Gardening is a great way to bring your family together to create something wonderful. By following the tips above, you can get your family started on your next garden project today.