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It seems everyone is getting a green thumb. A survey by a national gardening association found the number of people who plan to start a garden this year is up 20 percent over last year. Even the Obamas are planting vegetables on the White House south lawn.
We talked about the trend with Randy Gage, the children's gardener at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
Q. What makes a good children's garden?
A. What we've learned from years of gardening with children is that gardens are most effective as living laboratories. Success is not necessarily about how many tomatoes you harvest at the end of the season or how many flowers come up. It's more about watching the whole thing unfold. It's about asking questions and predicting what's going to happen next. Planting a garden is one of the best ways to do hands-on science.
Q. What would you suggest planting with children?
A. I'd steer people toward things that are easy and that grow fast and big. If you have a little bit of space, plant zucchini. Harvest the ones you're going to eat when they're small. But leave one or two to get to that big, baseball-bat size. Kids are just mesmerized by how big those zucchini get. I'd also say sunflowers. They're easy to start from seed once the soil warms up, and they grow very quickly all summer long and require little care. They also attract a lot of
Q. Insects are a good thing?
A. Kids are really interested in insects. People typically think of plants they'd want to eat — the end product. But I'd urge parents to think about a plant's attractive abilities. How can it attract insects and what kinds? For that reason, a sunflower is a great plant. When it's blooming, it attracts a ton of different visitors and its leaves are attractive to leaf-sucking
Another plant that's great for this is cabbage. It attracts those little white cabbage butterflies. They lay their eggs on the undersides of leaves. You can watch them hatch and you can see the little caterpillars chow down. They grow fast, and you can watch their whole life cycle. The caterpillars are pale green and just what you'd hate to see if you bit into a cabbage. As adults, we're predisposed to want that perfect head of cabbage. But if you change your mindset a little bit and think about growing a garden so you can see cool and living things, then it's fascinating for kids.
Q. What are some other plants you would you suggest growing?
A. There are so many choices, and that's part of the fun. Let your child have a part in the decision-making. Do they really like tomatoes? Or carrots? Model for your child what it means to learn about something. Go to the library or visit the Internet or call a master gardener help line. Take your questions to the local nursery. Or visit the Arboretum. We have a home-demonstration garden, planted in vegetables and flowers, common things you'd want to grow in your own back yard.
Parents always feel like they have to be the expert for the child. Sometimes, it's really valuable for kids to see their parents accessing new information and learning. Kids think, "Wow, I can learn new stuff, too."
Q. How big of a space would you suggest starting with?
A. For a children's garden, I'd start very small. Smaller than you think. Gardens can become a lot of work. The key is to keep it fun and manageable. You don't want a massive garden that requires a ton of weeding. For children, that's going to be overwhelming and a deterrent. They'll think, "Gosh I hate gardening, l have to go out in the hot sun and weed for hours."
Q. Any suggestions for getting kids interested in weeding?
A. Don't teach kids that weeding is hard work. Teach them to know their weeds. Can you identify them? When do they sprout and grow the most? Here at the Arboretum, children learn to eat some of the weeds in our garden. That gives them a huge incentive. If you can identify them successfully, you can eat them. Kids think that is just awesome!
Q. What's a weed you can eat?
A. Lamb's quarters. We call it goosefoot because the leaf looks like a goose foot. It's a very tender leaf. I compare it to spinach. But it's more nutty flavored. Then there's purslane, which has small, round leaves that are thick and juicy.
Q. When can I get started?
A. I'd wait until the first week of May. That's when we do our first planting in the children's garden program. You want the ground to be not frozen and you want it to dry out a little bit and naturally loosen up. If you plant the seeds in the wet ground with cold days, those seeds are likely to rot, especially larger seeds. The classic cool season crops would be radishes, lettuce, spinach and peas.
Q. Any tips for planting?
A. I'd recommend preparing the soil in advance. Then, the kids can do some of the final leveling and breaking up dirt clods. The way I teach kids about planting is to show them the tools they have on their body — their fingers. If it's a small space, show them how to use their finger to make a trench.
You can also measure the length between the tip of their finger and first knuckle and then to the second knuckle and teach them to use their fingers to measure the depth to plant the seed.
At the Arboretum, we actually create a planting stick, it's exactly one foot long with a point on the end. The kids use that to dig a trench for their seeds, then we put different measurements on it. One inch, two inches, six inches. Then, I might tell them you need to have three inches between each seed. Or I might just tell them to put down three fingers.
Have a parenting topic you'd like to see covered by a Minnmoms.com expert? Send your idea to Maja Beckstrom at 651-228-5295 or mbeckstrom@pioneerpress.com.
