Honor Home | New Honors | Arts & Crafts | Health & Science | Household Arts | Nature | Outdoor Industries | Outreach Ministry | Recreation
Gardening Requirements

There are a number of honors that are almost impossible to teach during the Pathfinder year. A couple of these area Gardening and Flower Culture. Why not send the honor requirements and some teaching hints home so that the Pathfinders can work on them during the summer. Many families have gardens during the summer and this would be a great time to earn the honor.
Most adults who garden began this hobby as children. And more than one old-timer has sworn off gardening because he hated it as a kid. Here's some ideas to start them out right.
Kids have so much competing for their attention: television, computers, sports, and a bazillion "planned" activities from library hours to birthday parties, from sleepovers to music programs, so gardening has to stand on its own. Rooting cuttings in water doesn't cut it. But what does?
If you want your child to love gardening, here are some things your can do:
Most adults who garden began this hobby as children. And more than one old-timer has sworn off gardening because he hated it as a kid. Here's some ideas to start them out right.
Kids have so much competing for their attention: television, computers, sports, and a bazillion "planned" activities from library hours to birthday parties, from sleepovers to music programs, so gardening has to stand on its own. Rooting cuttings in water doesn't cut it. But what does?
If you want your child to love gardening, here are some things your can do:
- Show them how much you love gardening just by reveling in your own garden every day.
- Surround them with great gardens. That doesn't mean a showplace. It may mean a messy, riotously colored garden; decorative little getaway; and profuse potfuls. (Remember that everything is bigger through kids' eyes).
- Take the children to a local botanical garden. Many of them have kid's gardens.
- Give them good gardening experiences. These will be great memories in years to come.
- The balance is to teach respect and enjoyment of the family gardens and make sure there's a garden a kid can call his or her own. Here dirt and water are the stuff of magic, and surprises lurk between rows. Anyone can succeed under the sun. "I did it myself" is a powerful thing.
- Recognize the kids' gardening priorities are different, well, practically opposite of adults'.
- Let kids choose what to plant. Offer guidance and make sure there are some sure-success plants among their picks. But if they want beets, roses, and petunias, why not?
- Relax your standards. Crooked rows or weeds as pets are fine.
- Transplanting is fun, even if your child plays with plants the way they move actions figures or Barbies about. But remind them that plants' roots need some time to grow in one place.
- Leave room for good old-fashioned digging. Holes are a highly popular landscape feature. Look for worms. Add water, and frogs appear.
- Paint rocks with the names of the vegetables and use as row markers.
- Model the message that some insects are beneficial, and even destructive bugs are highly interesting.
- For younger kids it may be necessary to do behind-the-scenes maintenance of kids' gardens, keeping them edged and weeded. Don't expect kids to do all the watering and pest patrol.
- Remember: One of the best things you can grow may be a gardener.
- Cherry tomatoes
- Giant pumpkins
- Popcorn
- Easter Egg Eggplant
- Spaghetti squash