Q: I’ve got my three children, aged 5 to 11, confined to home now due to COVID19. What can you suggest to introduce them to vegetable gardening?
A: Most children love to get their hands dirty and eating the fruits of their labour is a bonus. If you don’t already have a garden space you can start with having the older children help to dig a garden or prepare a raised bed. Children need to see quick results; chose fast germinating seeds like radishes and lettuce and they can start eating home grown salad within a few weeks of planting. Snow peas provide a continuous harvest and can be eaten as an snack and carrots need to be thinned providing tiny sweet vegetables. Now that you are home schooling you can use the garden to build their internet research and math skills as they plan when to plant and how to space the plants.
A fun project for children is a Pizza Garden with all the herbs and vegetables needed to build a pizza. Build a round garden 2 to 3 metres in diameter and divide it into six slices. Pick an area of your yard that gets at 6 to 8 hours of sun a day, including the hours between 10 am and 2 pm. Dig out the grass then add triple mix soil and compost to raise the planting area to be about 5cm higher than the surrounding lawn. Your children can dig in the soil amendments, apply a straw mulch then paint small rocks and place them as dividers between the slices.
For faster results use greenhouse grown transplants instead of seeds. Plant three tomatoes, one Roma and two for fresh eating, each in its own slice of the pizza garden. Fill another slice with white onion sets and another with three or four sweet peppers. The final slice will have herbs: basil, oregano, parsley and rosemary. Planting should be done after danger of frost has passed; in Puslinch that would be after May 24. To transplant the vegetables, gently tap them out of the pot and gently separate the roots. Dig the hole so that the plant will be at the same level in the soil as it was in the pot. Water the hole before planting and water the plant immediately after planting. Try to plant the garden early in the morning or on a cloudy day to avoid heat stress. Now your children will be in charge of weeding and watering for the summer. When harvest time comes around you and your children can make tomato sauce from the tomatoes, onions and herbs or use commercial sauce and use the home grown vegetables as toppings.
Of course, you don’t need a round pizza garden – you can use the same plants in a traditional garden. And all the vegetables can be grown in containers as well but will need more attention to watering.
For more information about growing home vegetables see the OMFRA Online Gardener’s Handbook at http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/gardbk/ghtoc.html
Judy Brisson, Guelph Wellington Master Gardeners