Your family might consider gardening to realize some of the following benefits:

You should be able to save money on some foods.

However, you should set up a gardening budget that includes supplies, tools, and water.

Hopefully you will break even or save money— especially after you have invested in tools that, with good care, do not need to be replaced each year.

Vegetables, especially fresh, pesticide-free vegetables, can furnish a major boost to your family's health.

Choosing and growing their own vegetables, as well as the superior, fresh taste of home-grown produce, can entice children to eat more of this sometimes neglected food group.

Today, most children do not have the opportunity to spend enough of their time in useful employment.

Gardening offers a valuable opportunity to use their free time this summer in a constructive way.

The accomplishment of growing food can encourage a child that might be experiencing difficulties in other areas.

In Ephesians 4:28, God says that we should work with our hands, so that we will have something to share with someone in need.

Sharing fresh vegetables with your neighbors or with older people, who cannot grow their own, is a practical way to show God’s love to others.

Gardening is an excellent way to keep your family active.  Working outside in fresh air enhances the health benefits of exercise.  Read more.

Working together can facilitate family unity as you accumulate common experiences.  This also gives each individual a practical way to contribute to the family.

Gardening will furnish circumstances in which you can formally (through a unit study) and/or casually (as you “walk in the way”) teach lessons in all areas: life skills, character training, academic, and spiritual.  (See specific suggestions in the articles in this newsletter and our next issue.)

If you want to take a more formal approach to your lessons in gardening, or want to augment your own lessons, consider one of these unit studies.

 •  Gardens Unit Study.  Written by Amanda Bennett for homeschoolers.  Available on CD-ROM or download with links to info on the Internet. Contains both elementary and Jr./Sr. high levels. Info and order.

 •  Botany Unit Study.  Written by Kym Wright for homeschoolers.  Learn all about plants from the roots up.  160-page printed or e-book; also 50 flashcards. (6th-12th grade).  Info and order.

 •  Gardening Unit Study, Principle: Christian Character by Dana Hanley.  Free e-book.

 •  Gardening Unit Study by Donna Sweet. Christian study with links to info on the Internet.  Free online.

 •  Unit Study on Plants.  Ideas for incorporating several subjects into the topic of gardening.  Free online.

Botany, the study of plants, is a natural and major area of study when gardening.

Good sources of information abound in your own textbooks, library books, Internet sites (follow the many links in this newsletter), seed catalogs and packets.

This learning opportunity provides exceptional motivation – the need of immediate and practical information for a hands-on project.

Depending on your child’s age, read about and explain what the plants in your garden will need in order to grow and produce (see below).

To survive, all plants require the following in varying amounts.  The range for each variety of plant can be wide or narrow.

Read about each specific variety that you plan to plant (usually in a seed catalog or packet) to find out the optimum range of each factor for the plant to thrive and produce.

1. Light is the energy source for plants.

2. Warmth allows life-sustaining chemical reactions.

3. Water.

4. Soil nutrients in the right balance.  For more complete information, read article at usda.gov.

The Great Plant Escape is an extensive, interactive website for children that teaches about plants with simple text and learning activities, including Facts of the Case, describing plant structure, parts, life cycle and growing plants indoors; Plant Glossary for children and a Teacher's Guide.

Botany: Plant Part and Functions contains more advanced information on plants.

(These suggestions can also be helpful for a beginning gardener of any age.)

Your most enthusiastic gardeners might be your youngest children. With a few precautions, they can enjoy this exciting and meaningful activity all summer and into the fall.

1. Keep it simple.

2. Give your child his own small garden plot. Even a container pot or planter box will do.

3. Let your child choose just a few appropriate plants.

4. Limit time for garden chores to attention span and ability.

5. Garden organically so children can pick and eat fruit. (However, wash vegetables first because of germs and parasites.)

6. Buy child-sized tools. Adult-sized tools are too awkward and frustrating for children, and toy tools break.
For example, see real tools sized for young gardeners.

7. Have fun!

Kids Gardening Primer.  10 chapters cover age-appropriate projects, motivation, design, garden structures, theme gardens, plants kids love, small gardens, maintenance, safety, and short projects.  www.kidsgardening.com

Organic Gardening with Kids includes “Top Tips for Novice Gardeners,” plus suggestions for best flowers, vegetables, fruits, and herbs for kids to grow.  www.organicgardening.com

My First Garden. A guide to gardening for children. www.urbanext.uiuc.edu

Gardening with Children. Outdoor and indoor activities for kids about plants, nature, and insects. www.bbc.co.uk

Three-year-olds love to help with a vegetable garden by poking seeds into soil which an older family member has prepared for them.

We have given our small children little garden plots at the edge of the lawn, where they can water their own plants with a child-size watering can without endangering the rest of the vegetable garden with their trampling feet.

Young children are thrilled to discover one of God’s greatest miracles as the soil produces a growing plant and finally food.  Even if their garden plots do not produce much, this is an important first step in their gardening education.

As each child shows increased maturity and faithfulness, we increase the size of his garden plot. This gives our children incentive to develop their gardening habits.

Read more articles by Joy Marie Dunlap at www.lighthome.net.

Many scriptures speak about planting and growing food to illustrate man's relationship with God and other spiritual lessons.  These can become more understandable and meaningful to your children as they practice gardening themselves.

Look up these verses and discuss them in your family devotional time.  Keep a list of other verses you find and put them in your garden journal or notebook.

See “References to Gardening in Scripture” in the sidebar.

Many character qualities are needed, and thus can be developed, in gardening.  By being aware of these you can watch for them in your child.  Commend or encourage him in these areas and read related verses when applicable.

See “Character Qualities Necessary in Gardening” in the sidebar.

Children need to learn the value of faithfulness in gardening, as in any other area of life.

A preschool child may need help in caring for his tiny vegetable plot.  However, older children should learn to take initiative and to be faithful in weeding, watering, and pest control.

I encourage faithfulness and give our children a means to compare how garden yields are affected by diligence (or the lack of it) by giving each child a separate vegetable garden.  Those children who neglect weeding and watering see first hand that their plot yields fewer vegetables than do the plots of the other children.

Each of our children takes pride in how many tomatoes or squashes his garden gave us this year.  I encourage them all by complimenting their vegetables at harvest time, thanking each grower individually at meals, and taking pictures of each child with his garden produce to put in a family album.

Read more articles by Joy Marie Dunlap at www.lighthome.net.