Gardening With Children

Rating:
Summary: I Can't Wait To Get Started!!!
Review: I checked this book out of the library last month, but just a few pages into I knew I had to own it! I was so inspired I almost started planting mid-winter! It is packed full of fun ideas like planting a pizza shaped garden with all the ingredients for your kid's favorite pizza. You'll also learn how to surprise you kids with pumpkins that grow with their names on them. The book covers everything you need to know, for everyone from beginners to experts. Everything you need to know; soil, sun, what to plant, how to plant and where to plant it. The pictures are charming. Read with caution - you'll want to get started immediately!

Rating:
Summary: I Can't Wait To Get Started!!!
Review: I checked this book out of the library last month, but just a few pages into I knew I had to own it! I was so inspired I almost started planting mid-winter! It is packed full of fun ideas like planting a pizza shaped garden with all the ingredients for your kid's favorite pizza. You'll also learn how to surprise you kids with pumpkins that grow with their names on them. The book covers everything you need to know, for everyone from beginners to experts. Everything you need to know; soil, sun, what to plant, how to plant and where to plant it. The pictures are charming. Read with caution - you'll want to get started immediately!

Rating:
Summary: It's basic gardening
Review: This book is really Gardening 101 with the addition of cute pictures of kids. It's all about good, solid, nature-based gardening, the way an experienced gardener might explain it to new gardeners, whether they were children or not. I can't fault the gardening advice - everything is sound and sensible. It covers garden planning, soil basics, organic gardening, composting, planting garden maintenance and a chapter on making gardening fun for children.

The flaw in the book to me was that it was all learning by doing and not enough hanging out and wondering. There is so much a child can learn by just hanging out in a garden and watching. They can watch, for example, a spider trussing his catch or ants herding aphids and learn how this garden world works, not to mention producing teachable moments galore. There is so much to ask about ('Why is this flower blue'?) It's great if adults have answers, or the means to research answers but it's even better if we can enter a child's world of imagination for a while and share his approach to a garden, rather than imposing our own.

Another failing was that the children in the photographs (all clean and healthy-looking, no dirty or disabled kids here) are all in their tidy, bright clothes and carefully posed as directed, digging, let's say, or gazing in wonder at a seedling. If only that were real life!

This would be a useful book in the household of a young family who are faced with coping with a new garden and children who would like to help with it. But be warned - they might get dirty!

Rating:
Summary: It's basic gardening
Review: This book is really Gardening 101 with the addition of cute pictures of kids. It�s all about good, solid, nature-based gardening, the way an experienced gardener might explain it to new gardeners, whether they were children or not. I can�t fault the gardening advice - everything is sound and sensible. It covers garden planning, soil basics, organic gardening, composting, planting garden maintenance and a chapter on making gardening fun for children.

The flaw in the book to me was that it was all learning by doing and not enough hanging out and wondering. There is so much a child can learn by just hanging out in a garden and watching. They can watch, for example, a spider trussing his catch or ants herding aphids and learn how this garden world works, not to mention producing teachable moments galore. There is so much to ask about (�Why is this flower blue�?) It�s great if adults have answers, or the means to research answers but it�s even better if we can enter a child�s world of imagination for a while and share his approach to a garden, rather than imposing our own.

Another failing was that the children in the photographs (all clean and healthy-looking, no dirty or disabled kids here) are all in their tidy, bright clothes and carefully posed as directed, digging, let�s say, or gazing in wonder at a seedling. If only that were real life!

This would be a useful book in the household of a young family who are faced with coping with a new garden and children who would like to help with it. But be warned - they might get dirty!