Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Boys, Dirt, Gardens, and Fun

Is your family planning a garden this year? We haven’t had one for some time, but this spring I’ve prepared a small plot for tomatoes, summer squash, cucumbers, and green peppers. The seeds were planted indoors in April. If you’re too late for that, you can always buy a few plants at the greenhouse.

As I prepared the ground, I thought back to the endless hours I spent as a boy, crawling around in the dirt and playing in my back yard.

What boy do you know who doesn’t enjoy digging around in the dirt with his hands? They don’t even need an excuse, but if you give them one, all the better. Boys can get into the gardening process with you, and then take personal pride in seeing the vegetables appear a few weeks later.

Of course, it helps if the like vegetables too.

If you haven’t started a garden yet, I hope you’ll give it a try. And you can save money in the process.

So, what are your garden plans this summer?

4 comments:

Homeschool Friend said...

Neat! We have alot of the same veggies as you!

We too planted (squash and cucumber) seeds in peat pots in April!

We have squash, cucumbers, pole beans and tomatoes. We also planted sunflowers, morning glories and merrigolds.

My boys are 6 and 8 years old, and this is their 3rd year to plant and tend to a garden. We love it. They help a great deal with the planting. Then they completely take over with all of the watering and picking. It's so rewarding for them to sit at the dinner table and eat the food they've grown! It warms my heart!

My boys love digging in the dirt...and finding all the creatures that come crawling out! We collect them and keep them in an aquarium to observe. A new insect we found this year is a "Colorado Potato Beetle." Exciting!

Thanks for a fun post! I enjoyed particpating! ;-)

max said...

Sounds like your boys have a fun summer, growing their own food.

Danielle M. said...

My husband and I are limited for space, so we are gardening in self-watering containers made from 5-gallon buckets and Rubbermaid storage tubs. We're growing strawberries, tomatoes, and a salad mix.

In my classroom, we pot baby spider plants in the fall and watch them grow all year, to the point where the "babies" send out shoots of their own.

Our big FUN DIRTY project this year was keeping a worm composting bin. We started by visiting a worm farm and picking out our 250 starter worms. Every week we add more vegetable and fruit scraps, and every quarter we have to sort through the bin to remove the finished compost and put the worms back in with the not-yet-decomposed bedding and food. Dirty, hands-on, and boy-friendly science!!

max said...

The worms sound like gooey good fun