How Your Family Can Benefit From Starting a Garden

 

There are many skills that you and your children can learn from gardening. It may surprise you to find that some of these skills are not even related to planting or growing. In addition to teaching your children many important habits and skills, gardening gives you an opportunity to spend quality time doing something that yields amazing results.

Your Kids Will Learn About the Gardening Process

When you create a garden with your family, you are giving your children wondering opportunities to grow and learn. They will learn about the growing cycle of food. They get to see where food comes from and have a hand in creating it. They can learn real lessons about crops and weather and how that impacts what makes it to the table. They also learn about survival of the fittest, as they understand that gardens have many predators. Not only are birds, bunnies, and other animals harmful, but so are weeds and bugs. There are 30,000 species of weeds, 3,000 species of nematodes, and 10,000 species of insects that thrive on eating plants. Your children must protect the garden from all of these.

Gardening Teaches Care and Responsibility

As your children learn to care for the garden and see the large amount of effort it takes to grow a garden and food, they will have a deeper appreciation for farmers. They also begin to understand why caring for the Earth is so important. You can begin to teach them about sustainability and sustainable sourcing. Your simple little garden will become a wonderland of education and growth. Children will also learn to love nature and all of its interesting parts.

Gardening Is a Healthy Activity

Not only will your children reap the benefits of growing food themselves and seeing the fruit of their own labor, but they will be active. This is an opportunity to put down their devices, be outside, and stay healthy, as approximately one billion colds are caught by Americans each year. Gardening is good for health and can help your children stay active and fit because gardening is difficult work. They will constantly be moving to ensure their garden has all it needs. Not only will they be moving, but they will be doing something that is productive. Everything they do aids the process of growing the garden. They can learn about the benefits of each action and how that can translate to other parts of life.

Gardening Encourages Healthy Eating Habits

Kids can be picky eaters. Most likely, it is vegetables they do not like. However, it is hard not to eat something that you have grown yourself. There is something about taking it from the ground to your kitchen and preparing it that gets you excited. Your children may just find a new food they love. Even if they do not love it, they may be more willing to try it since they grew it. They can experience vegetables that do not have chemicals and are safe for them and the environment.

Gardening Facilitates More Time Outside Getting Fresh Air

The act of caring for a garden provides your children a reason to go outside into the fresh air. Everyone can agree that people spend way too much time on their devices or in front of the TV. There are about 1.8 billion websites functioning at the same time every day around the globe, giving people opportunities to sit on their phones and other devices. Not enough people are outside doing something productive. You may even be able to encourage your children to willingly put down their devices more often once they find it can actually be fun to be outside.

Gardening offers many benefits for families who are interested in growing their own vegetables. Your kids can learn about the gardening process and sustainable agriculture, and your entire family can enjoy spending more time outside and together. Consider starting a family garden today!