By Kenton Sena Homeschool Curriculum If you have access to any land at all, you can put in a garden . . . .
Cultivating a
Green ;umb:
Why Gardening
Should Be Part of Your
For as long as I can remember, my mother has had a garden of some type—something like ;;een at last count. My siblings and I
have been employed in the upkeep of all
of them. As a kid, I rarely had a good attitude about being sent out to weed and
mulch, but as it turned out, gardening
became one of the most important life
experiences of my childhood. Looking
back, I can see how that experience has
in;uenced me both as a student and as
a person. My exposure to horticulture
led me to a growing passion for plant science. I discovered in my teens that I very
much enjoyed working with plants, and
I decided to focus on plants in my undergraduate and graduate studies. With
that in mind, I want to share with you
some instruction and encouragement
about taking advantage of gardening as a
homeschool resource.
you will use, taking into consideration
the kind of sunlight that ;lters into the
area and the quality of the soil, among
other things.
Studying soil science, nutrient requirements, climate, and environmental science will be useful at this stage.
Consider these questions, for example:
What makes certain soil types unsuitable for gardening? What kinds of nutrients are required for plants to thrive?
Where do those nutrients come from
naturally? What is the best means of
replenishing such nutrients, given environmental considerations? How does
climate determine plant selection? Also,
if you have any kids with an aptitude
for design and construction, you could
put them in charge of planning and/
or building any structures that might
prove useful in your new garden—a tool
shed, a trellis, an arbor, or a raised bed,
for example.
incredibly poor, you can design and
build a raised bed and import some good
soil. If you don’t have any land at all, you
might be able to get involved in a community or church gardening program.
And, while it would be ideal to have a
full garden in a natural ecosystem, even
maintaining a few houseplants or window boxes can give you a springboard to
related academic pursuits.
Developing Unit Studies
As you begin to think about developing
unit studies around garden work, don’t
limit your options to basic horticulture
and botany—dig a little deeper (pun intended); gardening can lead to the study
of a wide variety of disciplines. When
you start thinking about planting a garden, the ;rst thing you will need to ;gure out will be what area of your yard
Choosing the Right Spot
Have no fear, you urbanites—you don’t
need acres of land to have a garden. My
mother had a garden when we lived on
a postage-stamp lot in the inner city. If
you have access to any land at all, you
can put in a garden—even if that garden
is just a few tomato plants alongside the
foundation of your house. If the soil is
Planting Considerations
Now that your garden site has been chosen, you will need to decide what kinds of
plants you will have in your garden and
how you will manage it. ;is would be a
good time to visit the library and check
out some books about genetics, entomology, and meteorology, for starters.
What factors determine how a plant appears (;ower or fruit color, physical size
or shape, etc.)? What is a cultivar? What
about when insects start to munch on
the fruit of your labors? Take some time
to identify the particular species present in your garden and research them to
;gure out whether they are bene;cial or
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