Who will feed you when you’re old?
11July 20, 2015 by Buffy
Earlier this Summer I attended Farm2Home15 (a blogger event promoting Arkansas Grown and Arkansas Made farm products) at P. Allen Smith’s beautiful Moss Farm.
P. Allen Smith’s amazing vegetable garden.
While there we were told the average Farmer is +55 years old. The question was also proposed, “What are we doing to encourage the next generation of farmers?”
This is one aspect of farming/gardening that I truly love. I love sharing my garden with children. Children bring such life, enthusiasm and energy to everything they do and the garden is no exception. I’m lucky to have an endless supply of the cutest small people who are always ready to help.
This 5 year old is an amazing farmer! She is also a master at squashing squash bug eggs.
My team of small people made digging 80 pounds of potatoes fast easy work completely filled with an amazing amount of giggles!
Tator digging fun!
They were most impressed with the millions of earth worms we uncovered.
Digging worms!
Digging worms in the garden is a favorite pastime any day!
Spotty with a nice big carrot!
The small people also learned where carrots come from.
Spur picking his first carrot! He loves to pick the garden.
They were a little alarmed about eating something that was so dirty, but after a quick wash they ate up the snack straight from the garden. They had such pride in that they had pulled it themselves. The same pride I feel every time I pull a carrot that I’ve grown from seed.
They have also planted sunflowers.
Make a hole!
Plant a seed!
Be sure to water it!
They love to watch how fast they grow. The small people are amazed when the sunflower gets taller than them.
Even taller than the tallest one.
This team of little people also planted watermelon and cantaloupe because this is their favorite things to eat from the garden. I’m not a very good watermelon and cantaloupe farmer but I’m working extra hard at it this Summer, because these little people are watching the melons grow. They check them every time they are in the garden.
One very tiny watermelon!
Their favorite part is just the everyday picking part of gardening. I give each of them a small bucket and we walk through the garden. It is sort of like a daily Easter egg hunt. They like to see who can pick the biggest and the most. We look for pretty flowers, pesty bugs and always hope to find a few wiggly worms.
So grab some seeds, a few buckets, some small people and head out to the garden for some fun. I guarantee it will be lots of fun. Who knows maybe you will inspire them to be the next great farmer. Remember you’ll need someone to feed you when your old.
Wonderful! We hope to grow some future farmers from the neighborhoods around St. Joseph’s!
Love it! I find it bizarre that we don’t teach kids gardening in schools. Especially to show them that food doesn’t just magically appear in packets on supermarket shelves.
That little watermelon is ridiculously cute!
I agree Jen! I think schools should have a garden and a chicken coop!
Love this post! I am amazed at how many children come over to play with my kids and the first thing they do is go in the garden and pick veggies and then visit the chickens and look for eggs. Even at 13 and 10 years old these kids all enjoy this. We are hosting a fundraiser in August to help build a greenhouse at our kids school. Our family is going to oversee the constructions and set up of it and then the teachers will take it over. Such an important part of our world and unfortunately it’s a dying way of life! p.s. love the picture with the sunflower and cowboy boots…precious!!
Love the greenhouse project. I almost did a post showing all the teaching standards covered in our 15 minutes in the garden & coop.
Beautiful harvests! I’m from Brooklyn, NY and I plant a little organic garden in my back yard every year; plus, at my parents. It’s a wonderful rewarding feeling and my three children help out as well.
You can’t beat kids in the garden. I did a periscope with some of my cuties last night. You should check it out.
We have a youth group coming over on Thursday, and I plan to have them help me harvest potatoes. 🙂
So we’re they fun in the garden?
It was a very nice visit. Good group of kids and chaperones. They liked digging up potatoes. 🙂
What a fun a garden adventure!