Our garden migrates outside

After nearly two months of trying to sprout seeds and care for them in my kitchen window, today Samuel and I 'dug' our garden, planted what had survived the kitchen nursery, and sowed what hadn't.  We spent a happy hour digging in the dirt, watering the ground, and generally just enjoying this time of year.

My goal in planting a garden this year is three-fold:

1)  I want to teach Samuel through doing.

We believe that 'teaching by example' is really the only way that lessons stick with children.  If Samuel sees Mommy and Daddy working the soil, planting, caring for, and harvesting the produce, then he learns by example where food comes from, how a garden is managed, and the benefits and joys of working with your hands to make something beautiful.

2)  I want to have beautiful and productive fun with my son.

I mentioned in this post how I believe that activities for children should be judged on whether they teach a valuable skill and/or help to spread joy and beauty, or if they simply cater to a whim.  Planting a garden is a valuable life skill.  You learn how to use tools, how to grow food and how to recognize creatures in the soil.  "Look, Samuel, a worm.  Do you see the worm?  Worms eat dirt!  Show Mama some dirt.  That's right!  Dirt!"  With a garden you also have the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of creation and develop an interest that goes beyond childhood.  Perhaps skills in gardening will never serve Samuel in his profession, but he may find great peace as an older man in being able to tend roses in his yard, or remember digging with his mother as she showed him how to gently scatter the lettuce seeds.

3)  I want to reinforce the cycle of God's year.

It is so easy these days to forget that we have seasons.  I can swim in July and I can swim in January.  I can eat strawberries in June and I can eat strawberries in November.  The date bends to our wills.  In God's time, this isn't the case.  To every thing there is a season, and that is, I believe, such an important lesson to teach a child.  Children who don't learn that grow up to be adults who mourn their youth, always remembering what it used to be like, trying to act younger than their years and wearing clothing that makes them look like teenagers.  This same mentality makes children want to grow up too fast, unhappy with their childhoods and imagining that a future adulthood must be so much better and more exciting.  The grass is never really greener on the other side.  I think that one of the best and easiest ways to reinforce the idea of seasons is just to celebrate them!  In the Spring we welcome Easter, and then perhaps we have special days for cleaning, and we plant our gardens and then comes Summer and we go swimming and go to family camp and so forth.  Crafts that only come out once a year, special recipes that only show up at Christmas, things that make the yearly cycle a reality.

I hope that your families are finding beautiful ways to rejoice in the goodness of THIS season!