Planning The Family Garden for Sara Rose's Family

As a part of natural parenting, in our household, this also entails teaching our children where our food comes from, doing our best not just follow the food pyramid but also set an example of how to eat well, and eat locally.  We have a garden every year and both my husband and I grew up gardening.  My mom is a farm girl, Nolan grew up on a farm, and every year our parents would involve us with planting and cultivating our families gardens.

My own mother had me work alongside her every day of late spring through early fall, weeding, harvesting, cooking, canning, etc., so that I could see that the food I eat came from somewhere.  That's a really important thing for kids to understand in this world of big box stores, availability of foods no matter what the season is, and worst of all, genetically modified food.

Ever since we became parents we've been slowly expanding our family garden every year.  Our kids get to  be right alongside us as we plant, water, and grow our garden.  We want them to see, from start to finish, how to raise a garden that gives you food.  We hope they take away some skills for their own use too, even if all they ever grow is a pot of herbs.

This year is going to be AWESOME! We ok'd an 8x8 foot plot with our landlord, designed our raised bed that we'll be building at the end of April and we diligently compost.  We have an entire kiddie pool of compost and soil ready to go and we planned the layout of our garden, from top to bottom.  We dump new stuff in it daily and turn the compost weekly, even in the dead of the winter (if we can).

With no further ado, our 2011 family garden plans!  You can see that on our porch, we will be growing herbs in medium sized planters.  We always plant a huge square planter with strawberries for Eva and now Owen to cultivate, in between the porch and the garden.  On the opposite side of our garden will be 3 HUGE planters for growing onions, leeks, and garlic.  Why did we choose planters for those items?  We really aren't sure how well they will do and we don't want them spreading through the garden.  We also chose planters for our herbs because there is more shade on the porch.  Our back yard is on the south facing side of the house, pointing east slightly, so our plants will get plenty of sun daily.

Are you planting a family garden? Do you consider it important to teach your kids about growing food and eating locally? We'd love to hear your thoughts!

The Liebert Family Garden