You are outside, playing in the dirt and creating something together as a family.
That’s what I’ve learned as someone who has gardened with my parents and grandparents, and as a mom who has spent countless hours having fun with my sons planting and growing things.
Now, our family is unique – my boys are the fourth generation to work at Warner’s Nursery – but I think the benefits of gardening with your loved ones are pretty universal.
First and foremost is the quality time you get to spend together. There are a lot of activities parents do with their kids that are enjoyable – from hiking to hanging out at the movies – but there’s something special about the arc of creating and maintaining a garden.
It’s a long-term commitment. There’s a lot of prep work involved, then you have to nurture your plants with proper feeding and watering, and finally there’s the satisfaction of seeing your flowers bloom or harvesting those veggies.
Speaking of veggies, that’s another great benefit of gardening with your kids: it’s good for everyone’s health. Growing a vegetable patch, like all gardening, gets your kids outside and off their screens for a little bit. While gardening isn’t the most intensive exercise you can do, it still involves a lot of lifting, stretching and sweating (ask anyone who’s pulled weeds for an hour).
It also encourages your kids to eat healthier. Multiple studies for the past 15 years have shown that when kids are involved in growing vegetables – whether at home or through school programs – they are far more receptive to eating them. Part of that might have to do with the taste – the fresher a veggie is, the better it will taste, and nothing is fresher than that tomato you just pulled off the vine in your backyard.
Equally important, however, is the fact that your child invested time and effort in that food. It just makes it more compelling. So, while they might not be that enthusiastic about the zucchini you buy from the store, they might be more curious about one they helped grow in your garden.
That sense of curiosity is another reason why family gardening is beneficial; gardening engages and promotes learning and development in a variety of ways.
Just on a physical level, the act of digging, scooping, putting seeds in pots, weeding, etc., help to develop motor skills. For older children, it introduces them to the basics of botany, biology and chemistry. It’s a great way to learn about germination, photosynthesis and decomposition. Determining the soil and water needed by a plant and measuring growth are all about math.
Gardening also teaches responsibility and not just to water, feed and weed your own garden. Cultivating something from the Earth is a great way to talk about larger issues, such as environmentalism. The importance of water conservation, how to help out pollinators like bees by growing certain plants, and why you should avoid certain pesticides are all important lessons you can teach in your garden.
One other thing gardening teaches is patience. It’s a slow process, even for plants that grow relatively quickly. As a society, we tend to pursue instant gratification, and that’s even more true for children, whose attention spans are shorter. But gardening is one area where the rewards are almost always worth the wait.
Here’s one last reason to invest a little time in creating a family garden. It’s a natural stress-reducer. There’s some science to that – dirt has microorganisms that promote serotonin, your brain’s “happy” chemical – but I think a lot of it is just that you get a chance to get out of your head.
You are outside, playing in the dirt and creating something together as a family. There’s no TV or smartphone to distract you, no headlines to distress you, and you can take a break for an hour or two from work or your long list of to-dos.
Then you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor with the people you love. To me, that’s the best reason of all to have a family garden.
Happy gardening! FBN
By Misti Warner-Andersen
Misti Warner-Andersen is the manager of Warner’s Nursery & Landscape Co., located at 1101 E. Butler Ave. in Flagstaff. To contact Warner’s Nursery, call 928-774-1983.
