Read at :

Google Alert for Gardening

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070511/FALLON/705110459/1029/FALLON

http://www.rgj.com/

Start children early to cultivate their love of gardening

by Edith Isidoro-Mills

The next few weeks are the best time for planting vegetables and flowering annuals in Churchill County. It’s also a good time to get that eager young gardener started down the path to a future of gardening success. Three characteristics of a potential gardener are; they like to play in the dirt, they find playing with water fun, and they want to help while you are in the yard. If you know a young person with any of these characteristics get them involved in gardening before they are old enough to think it’s a chore. Actually gardening is for all ages but with all the distractions children encounter as they age, gardening can be viewed as a chore unless they learn it can be fun at an early age. However, expectations for you gardeners should not be high and viewed more as an adventure that doesn’t need to produce a product.

Recently I came across a wonderful website with information on gardening for children of all ages called www.kidsgardening.org. The website is sponsored by the National Gardening Association and is intended for parents, grandparents, teachers, and people supervising programs for children such as community youth programs. It includes information about age appropriate gardening activities, garden safety, a resource directory, online teachers’ course, suggestions for group activities, a registry of school gardens, and much more.

Gardening is a great activity for adults to share with children. In fact, for the child to realize any rewards from a gardening activity, it is critical that an adult participate as well to help the child distinguish flowers and vegetables from weeds and learn when to water. Also if you are having fun gardening the chance that the child will be attracted this activity is greatly increased.

One tip for successful gardening with children is to start with vegetables and flowers that are easy to grow and have large seeds. Some examples are squash, corn, cucumbers, beans, sunflowers, and zinnias. Pumpkins are also easy but they take all summer and part of the fall until they are ready. So if you choose pumpkins try to include another vegetable or flower that doesn’t take so long to mature because kids can be impatient. Show your child the selection of easy to grow seeds and let them choose which ones they want to plant. Then join them in the gardening activity. It’s much more fun to garden together and it gives you an opportunity to teach them something fun.

With patience and diligence, someday that child just might raise an award winning cucumber, squash, or ear of corn. In fact if they succeed this year in producing a vegetable they can enter it in the Country Fair this fall at the Cantaloupe Festival. If success doesn’t occur this year there is still the next year as long as you make it a fun activity this year.