Organic Frugal Gardening for Kids

Organic frugal gardening is a fun, healthy, hands-on activity you can do as a family.

It is an opportunity to teach your children valuable life lessons like how to be self-sufficient, conservation of natural resources, love of nature, patience, and respect for the environment. It will also get them outdoors and away from the television and electronic games—you’ll save on your electric bill. As an added bonus, they are more likely to eat their veggies if they cultivated them.

You can start small. Try a four by four plot in your backyard or container gardening if you don’t have a yard. All you need is lots of sun and rich soil to plant the seed of curiosity and awe of the magical process of nature’s wondrous cycle in the fertile ground of your child’s mind.

Tomato Plant

Choose a variety of easy-to-grow vegetables, herbs and flowers and fill your garden with as many as you can fit. Depending on where you live top soil may be available for a small fee from your county.

Once your garden beds are ready let your children help choose the plants and seeds. Seed packs are fairly inexpensive. You can even start saving the seeds from produce you purchase, like tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers.

Use empty egg cartons to start the seedlings. If you buy seeds, staple the seed packet to a stake and put in the ground so your kids can easily identify what’s growing there. You can even make a sign with your child’s name: Charlie’s Victory Garden or Amy’s Veggie Patch.

Or whatever you want to come up with. It will keep their interest and make them feel proud of their accomplishment. You can even get them their own personalized watering can—another fun project.

Be sure to get the kids involved in every step of the process, from the digging to the harvesting. Let them get their hands dirty! Let them do the work. It doesn’t matter if it’s not a perfectly kept garden, up to your standards. But they will reap the greater benefit knowing that they were the creators.

This would also be a good time to start your own compost pile—another great opportunity for teaching your children about home composting and what to recycle. With a homemade compost bin, show them how to turn food scraps and yard waste into nutritious food for their plants.

Frugal gardening is a great way to interact with your children in a fun, creative setting. Growing your own vegetables is also a healthier choice if you grow organic.

Organic vegetable gardening is the best alternative to conventional farming. Eating local and organic is ideal. Spending pennies to eat the freshest, pesticide-free, organically-grown veggies right out of your backyard is supreme.

By teaching your family about frugal gardening, you can be certain that you are helping to create a better environment for your children and your children’s children. Happy harvesting!

Grace Di Pierri, a photographer and graphic designer living the green life in Florida, USA, shares her passion for green living and her earth-friendly lifestyle choices at the online resource she created, www.green-and-simple-living.com