Growing Little Gardeners

  - By Sarah Renfro, Renee's Garden Business Manager




My son Mason started preschool this year and I’m pleased that his school incorporates gardening into the curriculum. We have a large front yard garden at home (see my previous blog posts) and of course working at Renee’s Garden has exposed him to growing vegetables and flowers. One of his favorite pretend games is to plant and harvest a vegetable bed (made out of blocks) and cook meals of wooden food from his play kitchen.

So when the preschool teachers asked parents if we had any special skills or hobbies to share, gardening came to mind immediately! The preschool facility is located behind a church which has a community garden plot. The members set aside one of the raised beds for the kids to use and got it prepped with compost and drip irrigation lines.

I brought a variety of seeds and vegetable starts (donated by Lindsay, our Trial Garden manager) and the class took a “field trip” down to the community garden to plant everything. The kids loved digging in the dirt and planting the seeds, although the concept of spacing was a bit lost on them. We will definitely be thinning quite a bit as there were many handfuls of seeds dumped in one spot!

The children will be visiting the garden regularly to see all the stages of growth and harvest the veggies. Of course the grown-up gardeners will be popping in also to give the growing garden little extra TLC!

Here are the Renee’s Garden varieties we planted:
Easter Egg Radishes
Sunshine Orange and Yellow Carrots
Rainbow Bright Lights Chard
All Season Broccoli
Farmer’s Market Blend Lettuce
Oregon Giant Snow Peas