Written By: Gwen Lewis

When I was a little girl, the extent of my gardening experience was being sent into the yard to trim the hedges and pull weeds when my sisters and I were arguing and driving our mother crazy. As I grew older, I was forbidden to get anywhere near the lawnmower due to my father’s horrific childhood accident resulting in two lost toes. Needless to say, this combination of factors was not a good way to encourage a love for gardening or working in the yard. I actually avoided any kind of yard work like the plague for most of my adolescence.

This all changed once I became a parent. When my eldest daughter was in preschool, they made the obligatory painted flower pots with violets for Mother’s Day. She loved pushing her tiny fingers into the soil and planting the flowers, and she was so proud of her work. As she moved into kindergarten, she graduated to a class garden. She would come home so excited and happily talking about planting the seeds, watering the garden, and then, oh the joy, when broccoli and carrots started sprouting. When she came home talking about the cole slaw she tried with their homegrown cabbage, I was sold. I understood this was something we could do together that would provide many benefits.

The first was time spent together. From the trips to the gardening store to select seed packets and seedlings to washing and cleaning our vegetables to cook for dinner, every moment was precious. She loved getting to choose which vegetables we would grow, and she was absolutely overjoyed when she discovered we could plant our own strawberries. She would chatter incessantly about what we were doing, asking “why?” all along the way. Without realizing it, I was giving her regular science and nutrition lessons. At the same time, we were connecting, laughing, and smiling while we worked. It is so easy for parents and children to disconnect and do their own things. Gardening is an excellent way to stay engaged and share a passion. It is not a one time thing that covers an afternoon, and then it’s done. It’s daily watering, checking for weeds, monitoring growth, and so on. It’s an automatic way to keep your child engaged in an activity with you.

The second benefit was letting her get her hands dirty.We spend so much time telling our kids to clean up, wash their hands, and not make a mess. Playing in the dirt was the time that it was okay for her to get dirty. She could explore with her own two hands and learn what the earth felt like, how slimy worms are, and how velvety a leaf can feel. Kids learn best when they are actively engaged with hands-on learning, actually doing instead of just listening.

At the same time, they can develop both fine and gross motors skills which are important to their overall muscular development and dexterity that help with our everyday movements.Over the years, her little brother and sister came along to join us in our gardening. It was an amazing experience to see them all work together at their different levels of development. When the youngest was able to grasp seeds and plant them, my son was busy trying to dig holes deep enough for the starter plants, and my original gardening partner was filling the watering can and determining which growth was a weed and which was a new sprout. The kids were relaxed and having fun, working together in cooperation, and breathing fresh air.

They were getting physical activity and learning the responsibility of caring for another living thing. They loved trying new vegetables and were more willing to eat them when they had grown them with their own hard work, and they were learning all along the way.

The benefits have continued as they have grown into young adults. We’ve had countless gardening projects over the years beyond our garden in the yard. We had a ladybug garden party one year for a birthday, multiple science projects involving growing things, an herb garden planted for Mother’s Day, and just this summer, my son planted his first garden at his own home.

What started as an experimental project with my first child has turned into a lifetime of wonderful family memories.

About Gwen Lewis

Gwen Lewis is a writer who lives in California. She has been in the health and lifestyle industry for years and loves writing on this topic to give tips from experience. In her free time she loves to stay active and has just taken on learning how to surf.

If you don’t have an outdoor garden you can check this small gardening project you can do with them indoors: Miniature Gardening For Kids

TIPS FOR GETTING THE MOST BANG FOR YOUR BUCK FROM A SMALL VEGETABLE GARDEN

Written By Drew Housman

Living in New York City, I’m often disappointed in the quality of products offered at the supermarkets. It’s not uncommon for carrots to wilt within a day, or for spinach to quickly turn into green mush even when it’s kept in the refrigerator’s “crisper” drawer. (Is anyone else certain that this has literally no effect on any produce put into it?)

For the prices we pay, it’s a pretty demoralizing vegetable situation.

That being the case, I often dream of having a small vegetable garden. Surely my food would stay fresher for longer, if I harvested my own.

Unfortunately, that goal is a long way off. I don’t have a yard, or even a balcony. Turns out, it’s hard to find space to garden when you live in a 70-square-mile borough that has more residents than San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland combined. But, I know there are many green-thumbed city dwellers who have access to small yards and community garden plots, or who even make do with windowsills. Can these folks get quality produce — along with a good bang for their buck – if they grow their own food?close

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We’ll explore that question with help from Erik Groszyk, a professional urban farmer in New York who works at the farming startup Square Roots.

Let’s dig into the Tips For Getting The Most Bang For Your Buck From A Small Vegetable Garden:

Start Slow

Erik suggests a would-be urban gardener start out in a way that might seem counterintuitive at first: by doing nothing. Well, nothing in terms of planting.

When you have a smaller space to work with, location is key, so you’re going to want to take the time to pick the perfect spot to place your plants. Erik recommends at least a week spent simply observing different conditions. Rushing into something and then having to backtrack ensures you’ll waste money.

The most important thing is to “note the position of the sun and what areas get the most light,” Erik says. “If you can understand the conditions of your garden, and choose crops that thrive in those conditions, you’re setting yourself up for success.” He suggests putting your plants in an area that gets a minimum of five to six hours of direct sunlight per day, and he recommends the average city dweller start with a five-foot by five-foot plot or raised garden bed.

Stick to the Most Efficient Basics

This almost goes without saying, but a backyard city garden is not the place to experiment with growing heirloom artichokes. It’s best to stick with simple staples that are known to be cost-effective and low maintenance.

The National Garden Bureau maintains a list of crops that have been rated based on overall efficiency. The Bureau determines this by looking at total yield per square foot, average value per pound, and length of time in the garden. The top five items on the list are tomatoes, onions, lettuce, turnips, and squash.

I ran that list by Erik, and he mostly agreed, but also thought a few more “super productive” plants could easily be at the top of the list — including strawberries, kale, herbs, and eggplant.

These might be good crops to start with. Of course, what grows well will vary by region, and you should monitor the local prices of various items to make sure you’re growing plants that will save you money over going to the store. (It’s also important to grow vegetables that you and your family actually want to eat and feel comfortable cooking with.)

Remember That Time Is Money

Erik noted that in order to maximize your returns, you’ll want to plant crops that can be harvested quickly. “Time to maturity is key,” he said. “The shorter this window, the more times you can plant that type of plant in a limited season.”

For example, if you’re a potato addict like myself, you might be interested in growing your own potatoes. But, those spuds take a long time to mature and can be labor-intensive for a rookie.

If you really want to grow a root vegetable, turnips would be a better bet. Erik explained why they rank so high on the efficiency list: “A turnip will mature in 30 to 50 days, depending on the variety. They’re also cold-tolerant, so you can start them early and grow them late into the season. You might be able to get six or more successions of that crop in a single year!”

Salad greens are another space where you can accrue considerable savings. Consider that pre-washed grocery store lettuce can easily run you $5 for a 10-ounce bag where I live. That’s enough for a couple of salads; I tend to eat a salad per day. It gets expensive.

Lettuce (No. 3 on the NGA efficiency list) is easy to grow, even in low-light conditions. A few dollars worth of seeds should provide you with a steady supply of salad greens for five to six months out of the year, depending on where you live.

On the fruit front, raspberries are a good, low-maintenance option to try out. They go for a ridiculous $5 per pint on average, so if you eat a lot of them, it adds up fast. Erik had great success with his recent harvest, planting two-inch tall raspberry plants that turned into six-foot, fruit-bearing behemoths by the end of the year. Even better, horticulturist Sue Sanders points out that raspberries can be grown in containers on a sunny deck or patio, as long as the container is at least 24 inches in diameter.

For fruit lovers living in cramped Brooklyn hobbit holes like myself, raspberries are an especially intriguing option.

Think Holistically

There are certain pairs of plants that traditionally grow very well together in confined spaces. They have a symbiotic relationship, which means the plants help each other out, and thus require less inputs from the farmer. This means less time spent monitoring your garden, which is key for a busy urbanite.

Erik points out tomato and basil as being the classic example of such a symbiotic system. “Tomatoes get tall and provide shade to the basil, which doesn’t always do well in direct sun. And the strong scent of basil will disguise tomato plants from pests,” he says. “When working in a tight space, it’s important to utilize these types of beneficial relationships.”

Building on that, keep in mind that crops like turnips, beets, and carrots have greens attached to them. Even though people like myself tend to discard those slightly unsavory looking greens when I buy carrots at the store, there’s no reason they can’t be eaten. Using every part of the crop will improve your haul and further drive down your produce bill. Plus, they can liven up your meals. Erik feels that carrot greens in particular “make an awesome salad.”

Use All Your Space

You might not have enough square footage for a traditional garden, but that shouldn’t hinder you from growing food. “Windowsills can be good spots to grow if you get adequate light,” Erik says. “Leafy greens and herbs tend to need much less light than fruiting veggies like tomatoes and cucumbers.”

Plus, herbs are big-time money savers. Thyme, rosemary, and basil are relatively easy to grow and cost a pretty penny in the store. At my local co-op food store, very small bags of each of those go for $2 to $4 a pop. I cook with those herbs on a very regular basis, and can easily spend $20 to $30 dollars a month on herbs alone. Reducing that cost to essentially zero would save me hundreds of dollars over the course of the year.

Summing Up

With a bit of determination, flexibility, and foresight, anyone can create a cost-effective garden, even in tight urban quarters. And, according to Erik, it shouldn’t take you all that much time. He thinks that “a well-organized and thoughtfully planned garden can require less than five hours of work a week after the initial setup.”

So, with as little space as a sunny windowsill and five hours a week, you can start to accrue significant savings over store-bought food. Sounds like a good deal to me