Gardening with kids

Today was the first day of the children's gardening program at one of the social agencies I am volunteering with this spring/summer. Acually the program today was not at the centre but at a nearby townhouse complex. I was leading one of the activity stations for the kids to visit during the program. They came to me to plant flower seeds in little pots to take home or to plant some seeds for us to grow in the community garden. Some kids stayed at my station the whole time and made tons of seed pots to take home. Some came and went and came again. All in all, it went very well. They seemed enthusiastic and I think they really enjoyed playing with dirt and planting seeds. I am looking forward to gardening this summer with them!

They planted an assortment of leftover flower seeds that someone had donated to the social agency in their take home pots. For the community garden we planted some nasturtium seeds. Nasturtium seeds don't need to be started inside but I have not received the seeds I ordered in the mail yet so I thought we might as well get an early start on them. Plus, I like to to talk to kids about eating flowers and nasturtiums are a good flower to eat. (Speaking of flowers, I was very pleased to see that dandelions have started blooming. This year I might try out a recipe I have for dandelion wine!)

I was actually feeling very anxious all day about my M.A. thesis and so having a break to garden with kids made me feel so much more relaxed and happy. A good sign that you are doing something you are meant to do is when you feel relaxed and happy when you're doing it!