Family Garden Benefits That Will Convince You To Start Your Own

You’ve heard it all: if your family eats more home-cooked meals, they’ll be healthier. Some say you should only buy organic products, never eat at a fast food place, and never drink soda again. You know that kids should put down their electronics, go outside, and spend time with their families. But you’re busy, your kids are busy, and you have too many things to do. Is there anything that might help? Without a doubt! And it’s right outside your door, your own family garden. Start a small garden, get your hands dirty, and watch your health and community grow. According to research published in the Journal of Community Health, A community gardening program can enhance nutritional intake, reduce food insecurity, and strengthen family ties.

Growing your garden can give you a lot of great benefits, like spending quality time with your family. A family garden is a rewarding experience, regardless of whether you have a spacious yard or a tiny balcony. Read on to find out how and why gardening as a family is essential and suitable for everyone in your household.

Health Benefits Of Family Garden

Physical Health Benefits Of Family Garden

(i) Daily Dose of Exercise

We all need moderate-intensity exercises like gardening and yard work every day. Research says Kids ages 3 to 5 need at least 3 hours of physical activity every day, and kids ages 6 and up need at least 1 hour. Even though taking care of your family garden isn’t as physically demanding as running or playing singles tennis, it’s still good for your body. 

Gardening gets you outside and moving. Ask your child to bring you different tools, like a bucket, shovel, or hose, to get them moving more. The work of gardening itself can also be challenging. Also, once your child is in the family garden plot, they are likely to play more actively when not gardening. 

You usually keep going for at least 30 minutes when you start gardening and gardening strengthens and stretches fine motor skills.

(ii) Better Sleep 

These things (exercise, less stress, and being outside) can help everyone get more and better sleep. And when kids get more sleep, their behavior, health, school performance, and general well-being can improve.

Even though gardening is physical, spending time in the sun can also help you sleep more than you think. Gardening is a light therapy that helps your body’s internal clock knows it’s daytime. A Family garden could help your whole family.

A study at Oxford University found that the best way to set your body clock and help you sleep is to go outside every day. Spending too much time indoors can confuse your body and make it hard to sleep. Though if you are hesitant to go outside for gardening, there are enormous options for indoor gardening too.

(iii) A Step Towards Healthier Eating

We all know that healthy food is essential for brain and body development, but sometimes it’s hard to get kids to eat fruits and vegetables. By letting them grow their string beans, carrots, and lettuce, they will feel proud to eat what they have “created.” This could help them eat five servings of fruits and vegetables daily.

When kids grow their vegetables, they tend to eat more. Or, at the very least, they might be more willing to try new vegetables, which is the first step to adding new tastes to their diet.

Adults who garden are also more likely than adults who don’t garden to eat more fruits and vegetables, and it’s no new that fruits and vegetables have got incredible health benefits.

Mental Health Benefits of Family Garden

(i) Lower Stress, Better Mood 

Gardening is a great way to relieve stress for several compelling reasons, including being outside in the fresh air and sun, doing relaxing and repetitive tasks, and even coming into contact with soil, which helps the brain release serotonin.

Gardening has a positive effect on both stress and mood, togetherly strengthening a bond as a family. It isn’t always thought of as the go-to stress relief activity like reading is, but maybe it deserves a little more attention as a stress relief option. A tiny succulent will never harm being at your kid’s study table; it requires zero maintenance. 

(ii)  Plan and organize Better

If you garden often, you know that planning and organizing a garden can take a lot of time and be an art. You need to know when different flowers bloom, how long it takes for a seed to grow into a vegetable, and when the best time is to plant your seeds.

Getting kids involved in this process helps them learn how to plan and solve problems. It also helps them get organized, a skill that kids can use in all parts of life. If you want to go a step ahead in gardening, go for landscaping; it requires a bit more planning and has enormous health benefits. Check out the health benefits of landscaping.

(iii) Quality Family Time 

Gardening requires a lot of work and planning. When you do this as a family, you’ll be able to spend quality time together. Research says that You’ll get closer to them as you work in your garden with your kids, spouse, and other family members. Your relationship will grow along with the seeds you plant together. 

It’s a huge accomplishment to see the plants you’ve planted start to grow. When the planting is done as a family, the whole process, from beginning to end, is more meaningful. Gardening helps teach kids responsibility and gives them a sense of accomplishment.

Ask your children what plants they would like to see in the garden. It’s a great way to start a conversation and make plans to spend time together, no matter how busy your lives are. 

Family Garden Benefits For Kids

(i) Engages the Senses 

Children learn best when they use all of their senses. With gardening, kids can touch and feel the dirt, seeds, and flowers, see the bright colors and different sizes of the plants, hear the sound of the vegetables being taken from the plant, and smell the unique scents of the flowers. Getting kids to use all of their senses helps them understand and learn about gardening and the math and science that goes along with it. What’s better than growing a herb garden to enhance your senses? We even have a detailed herb garden planner.

(ii) Raise Environment Consciousness

It shows how important it is to take care of the Earth. When kids garden, they learn how important it is to take care of the Earth if they want their plants to grow and be healthy. It gives parents a great chance to talk to their children about pollution, pesticides, and recycling.

It helps kids learn math. There are many ways to teach math while gardening, from measuring the depth of the soil to counting the seeds. You can also use gardening as an opportunity to teach math. For example, your child can measure the plant’s growth and then make a graph to show the results.

The size of the vegetables and the number of petals on the flowers can also be measured and compared. Identifying all the different shapes in the garden is another fun lesson. This is a great way to start learning about Geometry.

The more you garden with my kids, the more you will realize how important patience is. Kids are used to getting what they want right away, but gardening is often a slow process, so they have to learn to be patient while they wait for their flowers and vegetables to grow.

Family Garden Chores For Kids

Kids can do a lot of work in the family garden, either on their own or with the help of an adult. Even though you don’t want them to get tired of doing boring things like pulling weeds, having them help out and be responsible makes a family garden special. Set a goal, like cleaning up one small area or working for 15 or 20 minutes, and then do something else when you need a break. 

Depending on how old they are, children can: 

• Bring waste that can be composted to the pile. 
• Pick up sticks and other trash. 
• Dig holes for seeds or plants 
• Harvest fruits or vegetables 
• Cut the grass (age 10 and up) 
• Pull weeds (with good instructions on what to pluck and what to keep) 
• Rake leaves 
• Cut some flowers to make a bouquet. 
• Spread mulch or bark 
• Sprinkle plant food or prepare DIY fertilizer
• Irrigate plants

What Should the Family Garden Grow? 

Don’t pick your favorite plants to make your family garden more productive. Instead, give space to what grows best where you live. Even if you love beets, if tomatoes grow well in your area, give them more room in your garden and plant fewer beets. Ask your neighbors or look around to find out what grows best in your area. 

Change up the kinds of plants you grow in your garden. You might wipe out your entire garden if only one variety of plants in your garden becomes infected with a disease. Also, if you only grow tomato plants, you should know that 14 can only make enough tomatoes for two people to eat for a year. You can read more about growing a tomato in our blog.

Grow crops that are simple to store or that can store themselves. If you carefully treat garlic, onions, sweet potatoes, squash, dry beans, and shallots and give them enough time to cure, they will last for a long time in a cool, dry place. You don’t have to can or freeze these things. This will give you fresh vegetables from your garden all winter long. 

Plant flowers that spread their seeds in your family garden. Let your flowers take care of putting more plants in the garden. If you let your flowers go to seed, new plants will grow from the seeds everywhere the following year. If things get too crowded or plants appear in the wrong place, thin them out. Self-seeding plants include alyssum, bellflower, forget-me-not, poppy, and columbine. We have a list of fantastic winter flowers to choose from.

Conclusion

Once you know how important it is to garden together as a family, you can make it a lasting tradition. Whether you’re working on your indoor container garden or your outdoor vegetable garden, this process brings you closer to other members of your family. Use your garden to teach your kids about things. Remember to enjoy the process of gardening and how it makes you feel less stressed while giving you quality time outside.

Bonus Section

If you are reluctant initially to go outside in the sun and dirty ground, begin with indoor gardening. You can grow many flowers, succulents, herbs, and even a fruit right on your bedroom or window sill.

You can slowly move towards balcony gardening. We have a range of articles from tips for starting a balcony garden, the best sunny balcony plants, to a vegetable balcony garden.

Then you could gradually move into a small garden outside or grow ornamental grasses. We have got a few tips for starting a small garden. If you want to experiment with gardening, there are fantastic theme garden ideas for you and your family. From fairy garden to pizza garden, options are limitless.