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How to Plant A Garden With Tweens and Make Them Like It

May 3, 2017 by Kristine Jacobson Leave a Comment

It was a windy, chilly Sunday afternoon, but I decided we were going to get out of the house and do something. So I pulled my two 12-years olds away from their screens and drove them to a local greenhouse. Although it seems all the world is a bore to a sixth grader, they didn’t resist as much as I thought they would. I think they secretly still enjoy spending time doing fun activities with their “uncool” parents.

Our plan was to purchase vegetable plants to grow a pizza garden, which is a garden filled with pizza ingredients (tomatoes, onions, peppers, herbs, etc.). I gave each of them an assignment – one to look for Roma tomatoes and other to look for sweet peppers. They scanned the row of vegetables and picked out their plants in a few seconds. Meanwhile, I continued to look for herbs, and my thoughts drifted.

There’s nothing like moseying your way through a humid greenhouse on a spring day.

The smells. The beauty. The dreams.

I was picturing the amazing vegetable garden we would have this summer and the beautiful flowers we would have adorning our front porch.

My dream world was rudely awakened by one child jamming a cart into the other child. Did I mention, they are 12? Clearly, this was going to be a challenge.

We found most of the plants we needed, except for the herbs. So, we planned another adventure a few days later to the Oasis Gardens greenhouse near Loomis, Nebraska.
I picked my son and daughter up from school that day, and I was glad to have a 15-minute drive to the greenhouse so I could hear all about the Water Jamboree they attended at school that day.

We meandered the country roads and found our way to the greenhouse. Inside, it was warm and fragrant and filled with colorful flowers and vegetables waiting to be planted. We found the herbs we needed and then picked out a few flowers. My daughter picked out a six pack of beautiful pink dahlias. I picked petunias and geraniums – the only plants I’m able to keep alive outside all summer.

We enjoyed a peaceful ride back home and then got to work planting. My daughter chose to plant the parsley and tomatoes. My son planted the onions and peppers. As he dug holes in our planter with a trowel, he realized he was having fun. I realized how sad it was that we had never done this before.

It took just a few minutes for them to plant, and now we can look forward to watching our pizza garden grow and hopefully yield an abundant harvest. But, even if it doesn’t, the time we spent together was still worth the effort as I heard my son exclaim after he planted his vegetables, “This was the most fun I had all day!”

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Contact: krjacobson@nebraskafamilymagazine.com

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