A couple of years ago, I was watching a documentary about young children who didn’t know what vegetables and fruits were and where they came from. It was then, I decided that my kids are going to know all of their fruits and vegetables, and the path of how they get from a garden to a plate.
We are so lucky that we live in California and we can garden all year long.
Yesterday, we finally went to a local nursery and each of the girls picked different vegetables that they wanted to plant. We bought carrots, different variations of peas, cabbage, and kale.
In addition, we bought a couple more fruit trees and now we have an orange tree, two peach trees, a fig tree, a tangerine tree, a plum tree and an apple tree. I know it sounds like a lot, but it actually looks good and soon the girls can just go outside and pick their own fruits and vegetables.
My children love gardening, but I have to admit this was the first year when they knew what they were doing, they planted and did not pull everything out. Kids love playing in the dirt, being outside and seeing the immediate result to their hard work. Gardening also teaches them the hard work of maintaining the garden and the harvest. In addition, planting different vegetables and fruits and seeing them grow makes them want to eat fruits and vegetable more. My children always ate a lot of fruits and vegetables, but there are certain foods like kale they started to eat only after we started to plant it.
I am proud to say, that today they know a lot about the hard work of growing fruits and vegetables and cooking them. Having that knowledge taught them how hard one has to work to prepare a meal that they eat. It also taught them to appreciate and respect the food that they eat. Besides teaching the children the hard work of growing vegetables, it is so beneficial to eat home-grown fruits and vegetable.
There are so many other benefits to gardening with your kids that I have not mentioned, if you have an opportunity to grow your own garden and you haven’t done it yet, you should give it a try as a fun family activity.
Flamikgirls 