I love gardening!
Whether your garden is a small area in the backyard, a container on your patio or deck, even if it’s just a couple of flower pots in your window, the experience of gardening is enriched when shared.
We have flower gardens all around our yard, with many different themes; butterfly garden, water/pond garden, herb garden, vegetable garden, orchard, berry patch, and container gardens. Coming soon, The Fairy Garden! (my daughters have it all planned out).
Each year, we grow a vegetable garden and preserve much of our harvest to enjoy throughout the year. We dehydrate, ferment, can, pickle, freeze, and more to keep much of our bounty to enjoy throughout the year. In the herb garden, we grow most of the herbs we use fresh and dry for use throughout the year. Our kids help with all of these processes. We love seeing the ‘fruits of our labor.’
Most years we try to add a new garden or expand or change an existing garden. Last year, we added a bridge to our water/pond garden and added more to the vegetable and herb gardens.
This year, we plan to start the Fairy Garden, add more plants to our pond garden, add more plants to our hummingbird/butterfly garden, and build more bird feeders and bird houses to put in all the gardens. We love watching wildlife too!
Next year, we plan to add more perennial vegetables to our gardens. All of these will be fun for the kids to help with.
My kids help in all of the gardens. They help plan, plant, water, weed, and enjoy the benefits of each and every one of them. Even our littlest guy plays in the garden while we are working. He imitates us as he uses his own garden tools. He digs, hoes, waters, and even helps plant.
Show your kids how much you love gardening, by enjoying it yourself!
I remember being with my dad in the garden — a Victory Garden — when I was small. It’s where I developed my taste for fruit right off the tree at the perfect stage of ripeness. I’ll never forget that Babcock tree that produced the most delicious peaches I’ve ever eaten. The irony is that now we finally have lots of space to garden and hardly any time and energy to fight the deer and rodents who want to eat almost everything we grow. I kept at it, but lost heart last year when the ground squirrels invaded and mowed down the tomato plants one after the other until they were all gone.
Hi Barbara, thank you for your comment! My memories of gardening with my mom and dad as a kid are some of my favorites. Fresh picked fruits and vegetables are the best! I hope my blog will help to renew your zest for gardening. I understand about the deer and rodents. We have a few around here. We are always looking for new solutions to defeat all the critters and keep them out of our gardens, without harming them. Maybe I will try to share some of our solutions soon.