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Garden Kids

© Linda Mazar

I was going to write a traditional December article, but will veer off the path a bit instead. After all, half of this topic is kids and half is gardening. They mix well together, but you need both to have "Kids Garden". So this is my story of how I got into kids and gardening.

A Kids Garden with no kids. Five years ago, I was a teacher at an elementary school with no kids of my own. I was a new gardener, having only gardened a few years, and incorporated some gardening into my classroom. In 1994, we adopted our son Jim . He was preschool-aged so it was natural to start gardening with him. I believed it would be important for him to have something of his own that he could work on and show to neighbors and grandparents, so we started his garden. We planned his new garden all winter and started seeds for the spring. We were off and running. Luckily I had a small area available that had been a small veggie garden (I had moved it elsewhere), so he even had a bed to call his own.

Since that time, my son's garden has been a regular feature of our yard. His plants grew, contests were entered, ribbons were won, and the garden kept expanding. Eventually we moved it to its current site for better light and more expansion potential . We have been preparing for expansion of our family as well as expansion of this special garden. So here is our family expansion announcement!

We now have another kid at Kids Garden! Some readers may have noticed that I was unavailable during most of November. My husband and I were in China adopting our new baby daughter, Amira Claire. Amira has recently turned one year old and is starting to walk. She came to us on November 8th and we were able to complete the adoption and return back home to Minnesota on November 19th. We are very grateful to China for granting us the privilege of parenting Amira. She is a great blessing, just as her big brother Jim has been.

Now since we have another child, we may need a bigger kids garden!! That will be something to look forward to in the coming years. Since Amira is still small, she will likely start with a container garden or a very small plot in Jim's garden. She will help plant some type of annuals and water while her big brother Jim continues to control most of the garden. Time will tell whether they eventually share this garden or if they will have separate ones in the future. There seem to be pros and cons to each situation.

The copyright of the article Garden Kids in Gardening with Children is owned by Linda Mazar. Permission to republish Garden Kids in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.