From Guest Blogger Millie: Teaching the Basic Lessons of Sustainability to Kids through Gardening

Sustainability is a learning that begins at home. Sustainability means more than just using eco-friendly fabrics, furnishing and carpets at your home. It means you are saving the nature and all of its blessings for the future generations. And this is a valuable lesson you need to impart to your children as well.

Global warming, carbon foot print and depleting fossil fuels are not easy things to explain to preschoolers. But you can definitely introduce them to the joys of having a blooming garden in the backyard. They will love to see their labor bear fruit and flower, and will also welcome the hummingbirds and butterflies that come to visit.

Help your children care for, nurture and love the nature they have around them, and you have gifted them the basic values of environment conservation.

Gardening has innumerable benefits, and your kids will learn important life skills by getting their hands dirty and mucky.

Here are a few tips to help your kids started on sustainability, environment conservation and wholesome fun.

Give Them the Basic Lessons in Gardening

Very often kids look upon gardening as weekends of weeding and summer vacations full of tiring outdoor chores. They don’t see your kitchen garden as anything more than the provider of endless veggies and greens to their plates. So, it’s high time you introduced them to the pleasures of gardening.

It is extremely important you gift your kids a piece of earth that they can call their own. Make them responsible for their patch and the well-being of the plants that are going to come up there. Ownership will give them a sense of importance, and will also instill confidence in their gardening skills.

Ensure you give your kids a sunny spot that drains easily and is almost certain to give a bountiful harvest. Easy baby steps will keep your children interested and enthusiastic about the garden project.

Also help your children learn about organic manure, compost and use of home waste as natural manure. This will make them aware of sustainability, recycling and reusing.

Teach them the basic lessons of gardening and encourage them to watch you tend to the plants. You can take them to the nursery or a friend’s house with a fabulous garden, and show them the wonders that love and care can create in the backyard.

Get Them the Gear

Once their tasks are cut out, children will be all eager and raring to go, so add to the enthusiasm and get them their pint-size gardening kit.

Gardening gloves are essential to keep the little hands safe when working in the soil. The gloves will provide protection from cuts and scratches, insect bites and rough foliage.

Children love working with tools and instruments and if you don’t get them a few of their own, your favorite hand tool might very well find a new owner. There are gardening tools specifically designed for children, and are safe and easy to use.

Metal tools are long-lasting and will wear the adventure of a beginner’s gardening well. Your child should ideally have a hand tool, a spade and a watering can.

Familiarize the little gardeners with the tools by assigning them specific tasks like digging a planting hole, loosening up hardened soil in their garden patch or simply removing the stones and the pebbles from the mud. They will not only enjoy the dirty job, but will also learn to use the tools properly.

Help Them Choose Their Plants

Once you have done the necessary groundwork, go to a nursery and help your children pick the plants they would like to have in their garden patch.

Ensure you pick baby plants or saplings for the children’s garden. They are much easier to get started on than sowing seeds and waiting impatiently for them to sprout.

Pick plants that will give flowers in their favorite color, or have funny names like elephant ear plant.

Gardens Can Offer Variety

Habitat gardens are another great choice for children. There are several plants that specially invite all kinds of visitors to your home. Habitat gardens are not neat and manicured. They are allowed to grow wild and provide shelter, nesting space and a safe home to a myriad variety of living things.

Grow plants that cater to the needs of the wildlife you hope to support.

Butterflies are attracted to nectar-filled flowers like verbenas, milkweed and buckwheat. Butterflies are not only a visual treat but also aid in pollination. They lay eggs and provide your child with an opportunity to watch the amazing transformation of a caterpillar into a pupa, and finally emerge as a brilliant butterfly.

Such experiences will help him grow into a sensitive individual who is aware of the beauty of nature.

Habitat gardens provide home to lizards, songbirds, bees and other pollinators.

What If You Are Space-Starved?

Gardening is truly a luxury to the majority of urban city dwellers. But don’t feel disheartened if you don’t have a big yard to indulge. There are alternate ideas that you can try.

Container gardening helps you grow your dream garden in a restricted space. Half wine barrels can also be used as raised garden beds for beginners. Drill some holes at the base, fill up with garden soil and you have a lovely patch for your little gardener.

You can also spend an evening with your child and paint the container in a bright color, or have his name painted on it.

The Kid’s Garden Can Bloom, Crawl or Rise Upward

Introduce your child to the variety in plants. If he is keen on having a garden full of blooming flowers encourage him to grow giant sunflowers and nasturtiums. They also support pollinators and attract birds and other insects.

Creepers and crawlers also prove to be great options for young and fledgling gardeners. Pumpkins and watermelons are easy to grow and do not require much care, but they do take up a lot of space. The big bounty is sure to make a 6-year-old very happy!

Beans are an all-time favorite as far as young gardeners are concerned. They virtually creep up and cling on to anything that you may have in your garden like ladders and poles. They grow and bear results pretty soon as well, much to your child’s delight. The proud gardener can pick the beans right off the vine and eat it too!

Conclusion

Gardening is a great passion to cultivate in your children. The pride and the satisfaction that a young gardener feels when his family enjoys the pumpkin he grew is immense. Your child will also learn to look at the nature, the plants and the delicate balance of life around in a tender manner, and realize that the planet belongs to us as much as to a multitude of others.