Summer Gardening with Your Kids

It is one of my favorite times of the year…time to garden. I love the whole process, from beginning to end. I love the preparation, the turning of the soil, composting and all the broken fingernails that it brings. And, I especially love involving my two young boys.

Composting

Firstly, I’d like to let you know how easy it is to compost. There are many products out there that you can purchase to help the process along, but I am somewhat frugal, so I improvised a bit. I went to a Bargain Outlet and spent maybe $5.00 on a black trash barrel. I took scissors and poked lots of holes in it, all the way around. I dug a small divot in the dirt where I wanted to place it so that the barrel is tipped at a 45 degree angle. That’s it! The boys and I throw all our veggie and fruit scraps, egg shells, grass clippings, leaves and some dirt with worms into it. Every now and then, just rotate it so that it mixes a bit. Next Spring, you have yourself some “Black Gold”…perfect natural fertilizer for your garden! Here are some further tips: U.S. EPA Website

Tomato Ideas

Now, to the garden…My 5-year old is a big tomato fan, so this year, he chose many different types of tomatoes. There are big ones, small ones, yellow ones, red ones and golden ones. We enjoyed the planting of these as well. This led to a great question…what the heck am I going to do with all of these tomatoes?! I came across a great blog posting at Dr. Mommy Health Tips called “5 Ways to Enjoy Tomatoes” so I thought I would share it with you. Some great tips to preserve them all year long. I would love to hear what else we can do with the thousands of tomatoes that we are expecting.

Size Doesn’t Matter

You don’t need much room for a few veggies that your family may love to eat. Ours is somewhat small and includes the things that we buy weekly during the winter months. It is a fun and educational experience for kids and they absolutely LOVE to eat what they are growing. Classic choices are cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes (of course), perhaps some broccoli and cauliflower. There are lots of options for you.

Fun with the Kids

The key is to involve the kids and to make it fun for all. My kids LOVE playing in the dirt, so asking them to dig holes was no chore to them. They love playing in the water and spraying the hose, so watering the garden becomes fun for them too. And there is nothing like picking their own veggies and eating them right off the plant. My kids cannot wait to pick all the ripe veggies. If you have too much to possibly eat, what a great way to share home-grown garden-fresh produce….bring some to your friends and family! They’ll love ya.

Weeds & Maintenance

If you are not a lover of gardening because of the maintenance involved, there are natural ways to help. If you absolutely hate pulling weeds, you can help prevent them by putting your grass clippings all around your vegetable plants and cover the dirt completely between them. Keep layering it. It serves a couple purposes, often preventing weeds and also keeping the moisture and nutrients in the dirt for the veggies to feed off of.

If you are or are not much of a garden-lover, I have one final interesting blog reference. You can actually eat your yard-weeds away! Did you know that dandelion greens were VERY nutritious? I didn’t, until I read this post… Eat Your Weeds Away: Dandelion Greens. A must read!

Send Us Your Tips

I hope you find some of these tips inspiring and helpful. I am always looking for more tips and hints, so if you have any to share, please post them here.

Happy gardening!

raelynn @ Kidz Comfort

Tags: composting, gardening, Healthy Eating, planting garden vegetables, tomatoes, vegetables

Picky eaters can be defeated!

September 30, 2008 · Posted in Cookin' Kids · Comment

As most know, we have two toddler boys. It is often very difficult to make a single meal that everyone will eat. Outside of making three seperate meals and jumping through hoops, which I refuse to do, I have come up with some great tips for keeping toddlers interested in eating a variety of foods. These tips have helped us, and obviously wont work for everyone, but we swear by them…

Tips for Keeping Kids Interested in a Variety of Foods

Let them help…Even simple things like a Parent cutting up some veggies and letting your kids put them into a big bowl to help make salad. They can even mix it all together afterwards. My kids often do a lot of taste-testing…how can I complain about my kids munching on veggies?!
To encourage my kids to eat more healthful, rather then strictly telling them they should, I often just ask them to come help me prepare some foods so that they are more interested in tasting their creations. Kids can always help with the mixing process, or with the adding of ingredients…So when you are preparing anything that requires several ingredients, there is nothing wrong with letting kids do the adding and mixing (as long as it is not over a hot stove)
Smoothies are another great thing to make with the kids. You can pre-cut some fruit so that your kids can add it to an unplugged blender. They can then add the yogurt, milk or juice as well. I usually plug it in when it is ready to blend and let the boys push the correct button. They take turns blending…therefore, no fights!
Make your own pizza night is great! Buy some readi-made pizza crust, preferably the mini ones. Put small bowls of each topping in front of each child…pizza sauce, shredded cheese, pepperoni, etc. The fact that they are preparing their own pizza makes them so excited about actually eating it.
Play restaurant…We often put out all of the TV trays in a row in our family room, sort of like a counter at a restaurant. Then we fill about eight little bowls with what we call “snack foods”. We use baby carrots, cucumbers, strawberries, celery sticks, cheese sticks, wheat crackers, apple slices, goldfish crackers, etc. The kids have a great time playing restaurant while also eating a healthy snack.
We find that letting our kids “serve” themselves from the dinner table works so much better than preparing their plates for them. It seems to change their mindset from us telling them what they are going to eat, to them making the decision on their own as to what they will eat. Dinnertime becomes more successful that way.
Making their food into shapes is a huge success in our house as well. We make grilled cheese shaped like robots. We make sandwiches shaped like circles, squares, triangles, etc. If your kids like raisins, you can use them as eyes, nose and mouth. Be creative.
If you are not a very good “home-made baker” (like me), you can add mashed fruit into almost anything that you are making from a package…muffin mix, bread mix, cake mix, cookie mix. It makes me feel a little better about giving them something not so healthy.