GOD LOVES KIDS’ GREEN THUMBS & JOURNALING

Gardening can be a great way to involve children and teens with research skills, reading, and writing. The joy of their labor as they see the plants grow and become beautiful can also help them appreciate God’s marvelous creation.

I encourage you to have a vegetable garden. Children can have pride and joy with planting and caring for their plants. Gardening teaches them how to be responsible for living things and how to bless their family. Children also can be so excited to help harvest and carry produce into the kitchen for the family to share together. When there is extra produce, children can learn to give their bounty to neighbors and perhaps those in need.

Some children learn best by what we call kinesthetic experience. Personally, I think we all learn best by doing. If you are homeschooling, isn’t it lovely to expand your homeschool into your backyard if possible and enrich your children with hands-on learning in the garden? 

Children also can delight in “discovery learning,” when they acquire knowledge that you want them to have, but by finding it on their own. Perhaps you have used methods of discovery learning with your teaching. Sometimes children are more likely to “own” the knowledge if they have had the thrill…shall we say of unearthing it first. Gardening can be a great way to do this.
 
Easy Peasy or maybe Easy Beansy 😊

If you live in an apartment or condo, you may have space on a balcony for growing potted plants, or you might like to grow vegetables and flowers in a community garden. When my children were very young, we had a community garden plot where we only grew bush beans. They were so easy and on a hot summer day it was great fun to go there while the children sprayed the plants and definitely themselves with the hose.

Gardening is work, but by all means, I pray you savor ways to make it FUN as well.

​If you are new to vegetable gardening, here are some helpful tips--

Keep it simple in the beginning...

◦ Raised beds are nice, but you don’t have to start with them. Keep it simple. Create a patch of land or even a "grow bag" that you know has full sun and good access to water. A watering can can do the trick.
◦ Perhaps choose half a dozen or so favorite vegetables to grow that do well in your area. Avoid having too many of each. Remember, you are aiming for success. This approach can protect you from getting overwhelmed.
◦ Most of our garden is planted from seeds which we obtain from catalogs and online such as https://www.superseeds.com. However, you might prefer to buy seeds or starter plants at your local nursery or nearby general stores. After planting seeds, keep the soil moist to aid in sprouting and growth.
◦ With starter plants, you can cut slits in large leaf bags for where you will place your plants. Then spread this liner on the patch so it can block weeds from growing up around your plants. If starter plants are planted on a sunny day, cover them with newspaper to avoid wilting. Repeat the next day if needed.
◦ When the seeds sprout, teach your children to gently water them from the watering can so the stems do not break. Frequent watering is important at this stage of early growth since the roots are still short and can dry out quickly.

​Kids’ Gardening Journals

◦ Your children can enjoy keeping gardening journals that have pages for drawings as well. If you do this digitally, they may also like to add photos of the different stages of the plants’ growth.

◦ Their journals can include their observations as well as their feelings about their experience. Plus, by dating each entry, they can later remind themselves of growth stages to help with planning a garden for future seasons too.

◦ In their journals, they should sketch maps of where plants will grow. This can take them on a research journey to learn which plants may grow better next to each other and of course, to learn how big they become so they understand the need for spacing the plants. They can research which plants grow well in your area, as well as the best time to plant the ones you are choosing.

◦ They can also investigate how best to take care of the plants as they grow. Do they need stakes? (Think, stick with twine.) Do they attract pests like potato beetles? (Those can be removed by hand and also treated with natural, safe sprays.)

◦ Strawberry and rhubarb plants come back each year, and garlic cloves are planted from a good garlic bulb in the fall. That’s the kind of information children can have fun discovering on their own as they do their research.

◦ Their journals also can include their favorite recipes in which they use their garden produce. Learning how to organize and write recipes is a good writing skill too.

◦ Some children will want to create stories and poems or essays from what they observe in the garden.
 
Kids' Lit
 
Your literature at this time can include garden and farm themes--

• Let’s Get Gardening, 30 Easy Gardening Projects for Children
• In the Garden: An Illustrated Guide to the Plants of the Bible, by Whitaker House.
• Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House series, book 2)
• Vanessa’s Garden, Inspired by God’s Grace, by Dale Anne Fitzgerald
• Interested in coloring books for teens with a garden theme? Click HERE and HERE.
• Abundance of the Heart: Rejoicing in the Fruit of the Spirit, by Bob and Emilie Barnes is a beautiful gift book. Used copies are still available on Amazon.

 

Turn to God, the Divine Gardener

◦ As a family, you may want to make it a practice to teach your children to pray for their garden--to grow under God’s protection, and also to thank God when they notice the beautiful growth and harvest of their plants. When gardening we are often on our knees--a great way to pray.
 
◦ You can teach your children about the fruit of the spirit and how we want to plant love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in the garden of our lives, and pray that these virtues will grow.
 
Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…”

◦ The Bible has many beautiful gardening references. Once again, your children might like to research these and memorize parts.
 
For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. (Isaiah 61:11)
 
The Restoration of THE GARDEN Means So Much...
 
In Genesis 2: 8-9 and Genesis 3:8 we read of the beautiful first garden God created. Then there was the fall and people could not re-enter that garden. Death came too. So, I am so excited to read in John 19:41 Jesus rose from the dead IN A GARDEN. God does everything perfectly! Of course, a garden, because Jesus turned everything around and made it right. Now, as His followers we have access to God’s heavenly Garden, Paradise.  Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
 
At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. (John 19:41) NIV
 
Psalm 92:12-14 and Proverbs 28:19a have agricultural themes.
 
I am passionate about Jesus’ words in John 15:5 and hope many children memorize it--
 
“I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (ESV)
 
May you and your dear gardeners enjoy a bountiful harvest in your gardens and in your lives.

Galatians 6:9 “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (NIV)

Happy gardening!

Heidi Vertrees
Author of Victor Survives Being a Kid
newSongpress.net
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