How Does Your Garden Grow?

"Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And marigolds all in a row."

This is a revise version from, Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, and it is a fun one to teach your children...then read them the book as they get older!

In the meantime, get busy with a garden plot to enjoy with your kids! This weekend marked the first day of summer, so it is the perfect time to garden. Most flowers and supplies will be marked down at the garden stores, so you can try out your green thumbs at a discount price! You will find that having a green thumb is no more than having a sharp eye for the right plants.

A pre-school child can't care for a plant all alone and that is what makes gardening such a great time for both mom and child. A child will be very clumsy at first as he/she handles the plants, but that is all a part of the learning experience.

Get down on the grass and disect an inexpensive plant and point out that a plant develops from a seed into four basic parts...the roots, the stems, the leaves and the flower. It is the flower that will produce the seeds for more plants in the future!

Your child can learn how a plant grows by taking in minerals through their roots.

Worms have a purpose too...to fertilize the soil and break the soil apart so the roots can breathe and grow....

So much to learn and explore outside and a garden is the perfect setting.

Don't have kids? Start a garden to share with nieces and nephews and make your own 'secret garden' that they will love to visit.