Earth Day and every day gardening with children

Earth Day ? or any day ? is the peak time to be gardening with children, sowing the seeds of a lifelong habit.

With Earth Day upon us, not to mention the warmer and longer spring days, many of us have been heading into our gardens. Around much of the Northern Hemisphere, this is the peak time to sow some seeds into the ground, as well as plant a lifelong gardening habit into the children in our lives.

Skip to next paragraph Susan Sachs Lipman

Guest blogger

Susan Sachs Lipman is the author of "Fed Up with Frenzy: Slow Parenting in a Fast-Moving World," which grew out of her award-winning blog,?Slow Family Online. She is the social media director for the Children & Nature Network. Susan and her family enjoy gardening, hiking, soap crafting and food canning.

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Gardening helps families spend time together outdoors, take pride in growing our own food, and connect to others who have lived on the land before us. Even though gardening offers a bounty of simple wonder, beauty and fun for even the smallest children, it doesn?t hurt to employ a few methods for getting and keeping them especially engaged.

Here are some simple ways to maximize your child?s interest in the garden.

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Let children select some plants they want to grow.

Something magical happens when one has ownership of a project from its initial stages. When choosing plants, check that you have the right growing conditions for them to help ensure a successful experience. Planting information is available on seed packets and through garden-supply store folks, who are generally very helpful. You can choose seeds, young seedlings, or a combination of the two. Seeds are more cost-effective and can be especially rewarding and wondrous. Bedding plants of course give your garden instant color.

Some plants that come up quickly, and are easy to plant and grow, include nasturtiums, peas, sunflowers and beans.

(As an aside, my daughter always chose marigolds to plant, just like I did I when I was a kid. They?re so colorful and cheery and happen to be easy to grow from seedlings or seeds. Perhaps many children are drawn to bright marigolds.)

Chop chores into small blocks.

Kids can lose interest if the project seems daunting. Try to break up the tasks into doable chunks and over more than one session if necessary.

Make a sign that identifies the garden, area, or container as the child?s.

The sign can be as simple as a painted rock or as ambitious as a mosaic-tile kit from an art-supply store. If other people are sharing the garden, you can still identify different children?s plantings by putting each name on a wooden stick (available in bags at garden-supply stores) in permanent ink.

Create a fun space in the garden.

Create a hiding place with trellises or plantings, or plant a sunflower house by planting sunflowers in the shape of a large playhouse that you can later go inside. (Leave room for your door!) Designate a tree stump to serve as a table for tea parties, or decorate an area with whimsical objects you make or find. For instance, use pipe cleaners and beads to make simple butterflies, ladybugs, mushrooms and flowers, and then place them among the plants.

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