In gardens where grown-ups share adventures and victories with children, there are more things blooming than flowers and trees. Here’s what you need to know to make your garden a place where you and the kids grow together.
Since children can easily feel over-whelmed by long lists of chores or extended work periods, chop gardening time into short blocks.
• Choose a different area each day and work together for ten minutes.
• Celebrate a day of weeding with a ten-minute weeding contest.
• Organize a task force to “uncrowd the plants” with a ten-minute transplanting.
Kids often get so excited about their gardens that they forget about the time, especially if you garden with them. Here are the basic gardening tasks, any of which can be done for ten minutes at a time:
Watering. I always tell my small helpers that I treat my plants the way I want to be treated. I wouldn’t want to go through a hot summer day with-out, a drink, and plants shouldn’t have to suffer through a dry day either. If plants are thirsty, give them a long, deep drink—enough water to soak the ground around them to a depth of at least 3 inches.
Kids love to water. They’ll never check to make sure they’ve satisfied their ten-minute goal with this job. Teach them to do the “poke test” before they water: Push a finger an inch or so into the soil. If it feels dry, water deeply. If it’s moist, don’t water. When plants sit day after day in soggy ground, their roots may rot. Be sure to direct the stream of liquid at the base of the plants, not the fragile leaves or stems—especially if they are small.
Water early in the morning, so the moisture soaks into the earth instead of evaporating in the hot, midday sun, and don’t use any more water than necessary. Collect rain and runoff from the roof of your house in buckets and barrels.
Feeding. Like people, plants need nutrients to grow. I recommend using organic fertilizers because they break down slowly and provide the plants with a steady supply of nutrients. Examples of organics include compost (see here) and aged, bagged manure, which you add when preparing the soil, and liquid kelp and fish emulsion, which you apply during the growing season.
For convenience and health reasons I recommend buying bagged manure for your gardens. This manure goes through a pasteurization process that destroys bacteria and pesky weed seeds.
When fertilizing your plants, always moisten the soil with clear water first. If fertilizer is applied directly onto dry soil, it may burn the plant’s roots. Because each garden in this book has its own nutritional requirements, check its chapter for specific feeding instructions.
Weeding. Stop! Before you pull a weed, examine it and compare it to the plants nearby to make sure it’s not one of them. Look at the shape of the leaves, for example, and how they are arranged on the stem.
Pull weeds by hand or use a stirrup hoe, then gather them up and dump them on the compost heap.
Deadheading. Children like to dead head; just saying the Word usually elicits a giggle. To help them understand why they’re doing this job, explain that plants produce flowers, which bear seeds to ensure future generations. Producing seeds uses energy the plant would otherwise spend on blooming. If you clip off a faded flower, you’ll stop its seeds from ripening and encourage the plant to send out more blossoms. Give kids a work basket and blunt scissors or clippers, and show them how to cut at a node just below the flower.
At the end of summer, let some flowers go to seed and collect them for next year’s garden. Simply hold an envelope under the seed head, clip the flower off its stem and let it fall into the envelope.
Having a few child-size tools makes it much easier for kids to work alongside you in the garden. Hardware stores and nurseries both carry tools for kids: There are very small-scale sets for preschoolers and slightly larger, heavier ones for school-age children.
Tools can be expensive, but good ones are worth their weight in gold. And when cared for properly, they last for years. Here are some basics:
Clippers
Spade
Trowel
Cultivating fork
Lightweight rake for leaves
Shovel
Hoe (an oscillating hoe makes weeding a cinch)
Heavy-duty rake for soil
Watering can
Gathering basket
Mulching. Mulch is earth’s coverlet, a blanket of organic materials we spread over our gardens to conserve moisture, deter weeds, and prevent erosion. Some common choices are hay, straw, corncobs, wood chips, and aged sawdust.
Spread a 2-to-3-inch layer of mulch around seedlings and on beds. Because these natural materials decompose into the earth, you may have to repeat this process several times during the growing season.
I think of mulching as a ritual of giving back to the earth some of the nutrients I remove in harvesting. It gives me the same sense of satisfaction I used to feel when I’d tuck my young son into bed under a warm quilted comforter.
If you can’t afford tools, don’t worry. For small projects and container gardening a spoon and fork serve you well. Centuries ago, people tended large fields using only sticks, stones, bones, and shells.
Most gardens in this book need six to eight hours of sun each day. Observe your potential garden site in the morning, at noon, and in the afternoon to determine the amount of sunshine it receives.
Try to select a site that is sheltered from harsh winds. Fences, walls, trellises, shrubs, and trees make good windbreaks; however, plant far enough away so that the windbreak does not shade a garden requiring full sunlight.
Stick a shovel in the soil and check for invasions of roots. Plant at least 12 feet away from shrubs and trees as they can be aggressive feeders and will compete for your garden’s water and nutrients.
If your site has poor drainage, you may need to add organic materials or consider building raised garden beds.
You’ve got a good head start if you can find a nice, flat, sunny area already free of weeds and full of loose, organic soil—perhaps a former vegetable garden that you have tended through the years.
Unless you want a secret garden, the plot should be readily accessible—perhaps even visible from the house—so the children will feel close to the daily happenings in their garden.
Encourage children to discover all of the natural life of the garden—hatching butterflies, nesting birds, pollinating bees, as well as growing plants. An Explorer’s Kit should contain:
1. A magnifying glass for viewing the miracles that are often overlooked.
2. A notebook or journal for daily Observations, photographs, recording weights and heights of plants, drawings, poems, and descriptions of the garden.
3. A sheet of Plexiglas, on which children can place sow bugs, worms, and insects. They can hold up the sheet to peer at the creatures undersides.
4. A stethoscope for listening to trees drinking and critters chewing and boring into the bark.
5. A canning jar with a ring lid and piece of nylon screening makes a good observation bottle to catch, watch, and release critters.
6. A measuring tape or ruler.
7. A camera for recording momentous occasions in the garden.
8. A flashlight for nighttime exploration.
When you and your kids first begin gardening together, you’ll have to tackle the challenge of improving your soil and preparing it for future projects. It’s the most important step for the success of your garden, so be prepared to dig in. Do you remember how much fun it used to be to get dirty? Here’s your chance to play like a kid again—but this time invite your children along for an underground adventure.
Grab a trowel or shovel, a magnifying glass, a few clear plastic cups, a bucket, and a small hand or two, and head outside to the backyard for a soil expedition. Before you can do anything, you have to get to know the earth in your garden. Tell the kids that even though we walk all over it, take it for granted, and treat it like dirt, it is SOIL and our lives depend on it.
Scoop samples of earth from different areas of the garden into the plastic cups. Examine the samples under a magnifying glass, smell them, and feel the textures. Good organic soil that is right for planting looks dark and feels loose and spongy, almost like a great birthday cake. Good earth smells wonderfully toasty and rich. Soils that need improvement feel gritty and sandy, as slick as wet cornstarch, or thick and lumpy like clay. No matter what its condition, your soil can be made better with compost, mulch, and tending. Earth soon responds to care, turning your ground into the fluffy, aromatic material plants need.
Soil pH. One day at my Heart’s Ease Garden, some children were doing a school project—testing the soil to determine its pH. One of the boys asked, “Who cares a bout pH?” I laughed and told him that I don’t and he doesn’t, tut plants sure do.
I explained that a soil’s pH is determined by climate and the types of rocks, minerals, and organic materials the ground contains. pH is a measure of acidity (sourness) or alkalinity (sweetness). It is ranked on a scale of 1 to 14, with 1 being most acidic, 7 neutral, and 14 very alkaline. (The plants suggested for the gardens in this book thrive in a soil with a neutral pH of 6.2 to 7.)
Soil that is too high in acidity or alkalinity prevents plants from absorbing the nutrients they need for survival. Test your soil with a pH test kit. If the results show that your garden has acidic soil, add bonemeal, wood ash, or lime to bring it back into balance. If the soil is too alkaline, add shredded leaves, bark, aged, bagged manure, and compost.
Outline your proposed site with a long hose or rope. Use a pitchfork or spade to thoroughly loosen the ground inside your garden plot to a depth of at least 10 inches. Then clear the surface of the bed with a heavy-duty rake. Pull out clumps of stubborn grass and weeds, and shake the loose soil back into the bed. Children can’t do the heavy labor of clearing the land, but they can help break up clumps of soil and carry weeds and grass to the compost pile. Share the chores and have fun.
Rake the surface smooth, and top with a 3-inch layer of compost and aged, bagged manure—a job kids love! (If you don’t have a ready supply of compost and manure, you can purchase these ingredients bagged or in bulk at your local nursery or garden supplier.) Use a pitchfork or a hoe to work the natural fertilizer into the top 6 inches of soil. You can top the exposed ground with a thick, protective layer of mulch composed of leaves and grass clippings.
I tell my young gardeners that soil is a lot like us. Although we can skip a meal once in a while, we won’t be healthy if we do it too often. Keep feeding your soil with organic materials as directed in each chapter and you will be repaid with plump, healthy vegetables and brilliant flowers.
Now the exciting moment has arrived: It’s time to plant your garden. If you are putting in one of the theme gardens in this book, you can follow the seed-sowing instructions in that chapter.
You may decide to design a garden of your own or add your favorite flowers to one of the theme gardens. If so, read the seed packets carefully before planting. Almost all packets have useful information about the correct planting time, how deep to plant seeds, and the number of days until the plant matures and produces its flower, fruit, or vegetable.
If you are planting seeds directly into the ground, make sure the soil is loose and free of big clods, rocks, and twigs. Have your kids stick their fingers at least 6 inches into the soil to feel its consistency. Explain that small roots have to make their way through the soil just as their small fingers do. If the soil is too compacted for fingers, tender young roots will not be able to grow. Break up any remaining clumps of earth and rake the ground.
To sow seeds evenly, pour them into a small grated-cheese container along with a few tablespoons of dry sand. Shake thoroughly to blend the seeds and sand. Scatter a light coating of the mixture across the planting area.
Seed Tapes. If your young gardeners have trouble handling small seeds, use seed tapes, which have seeds attached to their surfaces and are easy for children to manage. You can order seed tapes from catalogs or buy them at nurseries. Kids can also use the strips to form shapes that spell out names or to make pictures on the ground. Sift a fine dusting of soil over the seed tape and sprinkle carefully and thoroughly with a gentle spray of water. The paper will decompose and become part of the earth.
Children can make their own seed tapes using the following:
cold water
½ cup of white flour
1 roll of single-ply toilet paper
1 clean plastic syrup container
1 small, clean grated-cheese container
Add cold water to flour and mix until it is the consistency of thin paste, Pour the paste into the plastic syrup container.
Let the kids squeeze the paste along the center of the toilet paper strips. Fill the empty cheese container with the small, hard-to-handle seeds and sprinkle them directly onto the moist paste strips. Lay the strips of toilet paper in your seedbed in desired lengths and designs.
You can get a jump on spring by starting seeds indoors on sunny windowsills or under a forty-watt incandescent bulb. Spoon bagged sterile potting soil into empty egg cartons or into multi-sectioned flats or peat pots, which you can buy at a garden center. Sow the seeds at the time and depth indicated on the seed packet. Cover with a sprinkling of soil. Water gently so as not to disturb the seeds. Each day, poke your finger carefully into the soil. Water if it feels dry.
Seeds started indoors need to be introduced slowly to the climate outdoors; this process is called hardening off. After the seedlings produce their first adult leaves, which look very different from the initial pairs of baby leaves, stop fertilizing and water as needed. Move the young plants to a shady, sheltered area outside for a few hours a day, and gradually increase the time. Bring them indoors at night.
After about a week, place the plants in a sunny spot outdoors, but continue to bring them inside at night. When temperatures are warm enough (check the seed packets for this information), leave them outside day and night for a week, then transplant them to their new homes in the garden.
Water seedlings before you plant them, whether you grew them yourself or purchased them at a nursery. If the seedlings are growing in flats or egg cartons, use a spoon to lift out the soil ball. Don’t pull the plant out by the tender stem—it will break. Be sure to dig a hole that’s twice the width and depth of the root ball.
Plants need vitamins too! Use vitamin B1 (available in nurseries and garden centers) whenever you transplant seedlings into your garden. This vitamin stimulates root growth and eases your seedling through the trauma of transplanting. Fill your planting hole with B1 and water, let drain, then slip in your tender seedling. Add soil, tamp it down and water again.
If you have used peat pots, moisten the young plants and set both container and plant into a hole that’s been pretreated with vitamin B1. Tamp down the soil and water.
Introduce children to gardening by encouraging them to plant a miniature garden of small, easy-to-care-for container-grown plants. Here are a few basic tips for successful container gardening.
1. Plants like living in a clean place. Before using a container, scrub it with warm soapy water and rinse it thoroughly. If you don’t, your plants may develop diseases.
2. Water and air need to pass through the soil to keep the plants healthy. Check to see whether the containers have drainage holes. If they don’t, drill some holes in the bottoms. Cover the openings with nylon-mesh screening (it cuts more easily than wire mesh) so the soil doesn’t wash out when you add water. Fill the containers to 1 inch below the rim with bagged sterile potting soil. You can plant either seeds or seedlings in pots.
3. Treat container-grown plants to doses of organic fertilizer or compost. Water only when the top 2 inches of soil feel dry (check by poking with your finger). Overwatering and poor drainage are as damaging to plants as leaving them hungry and thirsty.
You can “grow your own sod” by starting a compost pile and feeding your garden with the finished product. To learn what compost is, go outside with the kids and scoop up a layer of fallen leaves and soil. Spread these goodies on a newspaper: Smell them, feel them, and take a close look at them. This decaying organic matter is compost—the perfect sod conditioner.
When living matter rots and returns to the earth, it improves the structure of the soil, balances the pH, and keeps both plants and underground garden helpers supplied with food.
Humus is the rich, black end product of composting—the stuff at the bottom of your heap. Because it is so valuable to soil and plants, it is called the “Earth Nurse.” Humus, which does its work inside the soil itself, and mulch, which protects the soil from above, are a wonderful rotten twosome that work together to improve your garden.
When you compost, you are giving Mother Nature a helping hand by speeding up the natural process of decomposition that usually takes a full year to accomplish. If everyone composted, our soil would be healthier, and our landfills wouldn’t be overflowing.
In the world of compost, bigger is better. If you have a mass of decomposing matter that’s at least 3 feet high, wide, and deep, the pile heats up, stays hot, and rots faster. All kinds of vegetable matter—fruit and vegetable peels, grass, leaves, and twigs—belong in a compost heap. Yours will grow quickly with material you once threw out with the trash.
If you’re starting a heap from scratch, add the ingredients in 3-to-4-inch-thick layers. At the bottom, place dry stalks or twigs to provide drainage and allow air to circulate. Alternate fine-textured materials, such as vegetable peelings, flower clippings, and grass, with coarse-textured items, such as leaves, cornstalks, and twigs.
Supercharge your heap—which is like a giant health-food sandwich—with organic fertilizers, such as manure, rock phosphate, or bonemeal.
The bacteria and fungi in a compost pile need water and air to do their job. To make sure they have the right amount of moisture, stick your hand into the pile and squeeze. If the com-post feels like a moist sponge, it is perfect. If the compost is dry, use a hose or watering can to wet the pile. If the neap begins to smell rotten, add air by turning chunks of compost with a pitchfork.
The compost is “done” when it is a fluffy, black material. Spread it on your garden, and make your plants happy.
Building a Compost Bin. A wire enclosure is one of the most common types of compost bin and it’s very easy to make. Purchase a roll of 3-foot-wide garden fencing with 2-by-4-inch holes Use wire cutters to cut a 10-foot length from the roll to make a bin 3 feet in diameter. Form the bin by fastening the ends of the fencing together with short pieces of wire.
You can easily moisten and aerate the contents of such an enclosure. To remove the compost, simply lift up the wire. It’s easy to keep 3 or 4 bins going at the same time. The contents of a bin quickly turn into compost. Once the first bin is full, move on to the next.
Bins to Buy. Many nurseries and garden catalogs offer polyethylene units with snap-on lids; these bins create finished compost in just weeks. Some have special channels to maintain moisture and add air, while others are drums that need periodic rotation to mix the contents. Check Resources, for suppliers.
One day, I dropped by a friend’s house to admire his gardens. When I asked him the secret of his success, he took my hand, led me to a large concrete box, and lifted the lid. Inside was a wriggling mass of shiny red earthworms. “Now you know my secret,” he said: “And I am going to fill a bucket with worms for your garden.”
Since that day, my best garden helpers have been the huge family of worms that grew from my friend’s gift. They live in a special bin my husband and I built for them. My human family is treated to regular worm updates, and they sometimes call me “mother of millions.”
Earthworms are the magicians of the underground. While they quest for food, they slip accordion-like through the soil eating debris and pooping it out as a rich natural fertilizer called castings. As they slither through the soil, they leave behind nutritious nitrogen-rich slime and create a vast underground net-Work of tunnels, which aerate the soil and allow plant roots to breathe and grow.
All you have to do is provide your worms with a few basic necessities: a secure home, food (your garbage is their gourmet feast), and moisture.
• One pound of worms eats ½ pound of kitchen scrape each day.
• A worm can move a rock that’s 60 times its own body weight. (That’s like you lifting a truck.)
• There are more than 2,400 species of earthworms; they range in length from 1/25 inch to 22 feet (South Africa’s Microhaetus rappi).
• Worms breathe through their skin.
• A worm can live for 12 years.
• Worms are hermaphroditic, which means each one has both male and female reproductive organs; however, it takes two worms to reproduce.
• Worms produce as many as 1,500 offspring a year.
• The body of a worm is made of 100–200 ringed segments; undulating muscles move it through the soil.
• According to some German scientists, earthworms actually sing in a definite and changing rhythm.
Situate your worm box in a shady area against a fence or beside a sheltering wall. Use exterior-grade plywood to build a bottomless box at least 4 feet square and 1 foot high. Cut a piece of plywood for a lid. Separate your box into two sections with a solid center divider.
Layer the bottom with a few inches of moist soil and some kitchen scraps. Gently add your worms to their new home and cover them with a topping of clippings or sod. Make a habit of topping the worms with soil, clippings, or wet newspaper whenever you feed them. Sprinkle with water and close the lid.
Fill one side of the box before moving to the other. Dig into the full section to check your worms progress. If most of the food is unidentifiable and resembles loose, dark soil, the worms are working their wizardry. Use a trowel or shovel and fill a bucket with the worms’ offerings and spread it around your plants.
You can buy earthworms by the pound (1,000 per pound) at nurseries or bait shops, or through mail-order catalogs (see Resources).
