Nate and I have been trying to come up with ways of teaching our little ones the value of hard work.
One thing we've done is plant a garden. I LOVE to garden. I'm not saying I'm any good at it, but it's something I grew up doing, and so it reminds me of home, and so I love it. I love going out early in the morning and watering. And, I love watching the little sprouts push up through the dirt and grow. In my opinion, gardens are just really great places. I have fond memories of picking vegetables, especially peas and tomatoes, and eating them right from the garden.
Anyway, like I said, we want our kids to be involved in this garden, so we did a couple of things to make it more kid friendly. One thing we did, which I think was my dad's idea, was put big rocks at the top of each row. This helps the kids identify that there actually is a row there before the seeds pop up. And, the rocks act as sort of a guard rail for the hose. They keep the hose at the top of the garden and thus save our plants from destruction via garden hose.
Another thing we did also involved rocks. And that was just put some larger rocks randomly throughout the garden. We hoped this would add some fun to the garden. The rocks are there to climb on, sit on, and jump off of. There is a nice flat rock I think would be fun to have little tea parties on. You get the idea.
So far we have planted peas, carrots, zucchini, squash and radishes from seed. The tomatoes and peppers we planted from starts. The seeds have all started to sprout and it's really fun to see. Grace is especially excited. She does a great job of watering--when I let her. (Remember, I told you I really like to water in the early morning. It's supposed to be Grace's job.)
If you like the idea of gardening with your kids, check out kidsgardening.org. I thought their Parents Primer section looked especially interesting. It doesn't have to be stressful, you could just do what Cheryl Dorschner suggested here and "plant last night's dessert--watermelon seeds..."
