Playing In The Dirt: Grow! Kids Learn While They Have Fun With Gardening

97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com have partnered with Orange County Master Gardeners for “Playing in the Dirt,” a monthly column exploring the fertile ground of home gardening in our community and intended to provide the information and inspiration gardeners of all skills levels need to flourish! Check back on Chapelboro each month for a new subject – from our gardens to yours!

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By Sharon Billings and Kathy Bucher , Orange County Master Gardeners

Gardening is a wonderful activity for children. It sparks curiosity and encourages  healthy eating. Best of all, it’s fun! Most kids love digging in the dirt, watering plants and proudly picking flowers or vegetables. Along the way, they learn about science and weather as well as the work of farmers who supply us with food.

It’s easy to start with a small spot in your yard that gets good sunlight. You can grow plants in containers if you don’t have space for a garden. You can even sprout plants on your kitchen counter!

For tips on growing vegetables, download NC State Extension’s Vegetable Gardening: A Beginner’s Guide. It explains how to improve your soil, plan for enough sun and water, and plant in three seasons (spring, summer, fall). It also describes a 4-by-4-foot planting bed, which is easy and fun to build.

Vegetables and many flowers need up to eight hours of sunlight each day. Keep in mind that plants such as tomatoes will need space to grow and may need support, such as stakes or cages.

If you don’t have room for a garden, many flowers and vegetables do well in containers. Use potting soil (not garden soil) and follow instructions on the seed packet or plant label. NC State Extension has helpful information on container gardening as well as interesting plants for kids.

Visit a nursery or garden center to get a few packs of seeds (hardware stores and grocery stores also sell seed packs). You can also buy tomato seedlings or other plants that have been started in small pots. Children can select the seeds or plants – you can read labels and talk about the need for sunlight and water, and how much space the plant will need.

Vegetables that are easy to grow include sugar snap peas (plant in early spring), carrots, lettuce, radishes, cherry tomatoes (start as plantlets) and potatoes. Annual flowers that are easy to grow and pick include marigolds, zinnias and snapdragons.

If you are short on space or time, try indoor gardening:

• Grow lettuce in a plastic bag: Plant lettuce seeds in a quart-size plastic bag. Read about it here.
• Sprout a sweet potato: All you need is a sweet potato, a dish or jar of water and some toothpicks. Read more here. (The North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission web site also has learning activities for children.)
• Grow plants from kitchen scraps: You can use the top of a carrot, an avocado or other pieces of vegetables and fruits. Read more here.

The Orange County Master Gardener volunteers have programs to educate the public about gardening and the science of plants. Members of the Master Gardeners’ Youth Programs Committee enjoy visiting our local schools and providing hands-on activities for youth to learn about and enjoy gardening.

The Youth Programs volunteers have been active at schools in our area, assisting in horticulture activities. At Frank Porter Graham Elementary School in Chapel Hill, a gardening project has been underway for five years. After classroom instruction, students plant vegetables in a well-fenced garden and later weed, water and harvest their bounty. They have grown all sorts of cold season and warm season crops, along with unusual crops like rice. When they are working in the garden, students enjoy the opportunity to be outdoors and learn about plants. Some just love shoveling.

Another school in Chapel Hill with a lovely student garden is Glenwood Elementary School. Their garden was initiated by a teacher. Other schools in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County school systems have gardens, and all have space that could be used for gardens.

The Master Gardener Youth Programs Committee collaborates with Growing Up Healthy, a program, led by Maria Hitt, director of health initiatives for the Orange County Partnership for Young Children. Maria has provided hands-on, fun lesson plans for pre-K and kindergarten age children. We have used the lessons at the Master’s Garden Preschool and Lil’ Treasures Daycare in Hillsborough. These programs are fun for everyone! We discuss a vegetable or flower using books and art, and we eat some vegetable snacks. Then we visit the garden outside to plant or harvest, depending on the season. The kids love it and are eager to sample some foods they previously thought they didn’t like.

We also have been developing lessons for elementary age students, with activities, books and supplies. Topics include plant needs, planting a salad garden, sunflowers, sweet potatoes and composting with worms. Some of the activities include a take-home component so the rest of the family can be involved. Recently, we received permission from the NC Museum of Natural Sciences’ Curiosity Classes programs to use the props and script for a “Green Plant” lesson for second or third graders.

We look forward to providing more help with classroom instruction and outdoor planting. We encourage teachers in the area to reach out to our group. If you are an educator and would like Orange County Master Gardener volunteers to visit your school with one of our gardening programs, contact us at ocmgardeners+youth@gmail.com. We would love to visit your school, help with starting a school garden, provide in-classroom presentations and help students with hands-on learning with garden activities.

Helpful resources for involving kids in gardening:

• The Orange Gardener (the Orange County Master Gardeners’ web site, with plant information tailored to our area)
• Vegetable Gardening: A Beginner’s Guide
• Container Gardening is for Everyone (written for youth)
• Top Ten Plants for Kids
• NC State Vegetable Gardening Resources
• The North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill and Duke Gardens in Durham both have children’s gardens and programs for children and families.

Have a plant or garden question for the Orange County Master Gardeners? Email ocmgardeners@gmail.com or phone 919-245-2061. Follow us on Facebook (search for OCEMGV).

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