Gardening has always been a peaceful activity that can be enjoyed by just about everyone. Whether one is raising a bounty of fruits and vegetables, or takes pride in meticulously preening a delicate bonsai tree, the act of caretaking for plants that would otherwise wither and die is in many ways its own reward. This is one of the reasons that so many people enjoy gardening and want to share this simple pleasure with their children.
Same Amount of Exercise as Golf
Considering that gardening also provides the exercise equivalent of golfing with a cart, it is an economic and healthy thing to do for folks of all ages. It is considerably less expensive than greens fees will ever be, and it eliminates the possibility of driving a golf cart into the sand trap after having had a few too many cold ones out on the course. In teaching your children about gardening, you are also passing along a life-skill that used to be vital to our existence.
A Dying Art?
Now, with grocery stores on every corner, and global trade bringing in fresh food products from tropical climates even during the harshest of winters, gardening as a home-based activity has fallen off sharply. Even flowers are no longer the stuff that comes from seeds; just as grass is purchased in rolls of sod, flowers are purchased in flats, already mature. They’re put into and ripped out of the ground on a regular basis – like changing film, back when we still used to do that.
Getting back to the basics of gardening involves learning some of the principles of earth science. It involves a little bit of chemistry, too, but mostly it involves those things that we’d all like to instill in our children – careful nurturing, established routines and, yes, good old-fashioned hard work, all in the context of spending quality time with the kids. In doing so, more than just plants will be growing in your family.
Starting a garden indoors with grow lights before it get warm is a good way to get a head start on the season.