Spotlight: Little Acorn Children’s Garden

In a recent article in Hilliard This Week (available also through the Columbus Dispatch website), the Environmental Sustainability Commission put a spotlight on Mindy Atwood and the Little Acorn Children’s Garden. Here are some more tips, suggestions and resources from Mindy that didn’t fit in the paper!

**To arrange a visit and volunteer to help at the garden, you can email Mindy at littleacorngarden@gmail.com or visit the Little Acorn facebook page.**

Here are 8 reasons why it’s important for children to help garden:

1. Helps exercise attention span
2. Teaches delayed gratification
3. Provides a fun source of exercise
4. Teaches responsibility
5. Helps get your children outside
6. Helps children appreciate where food comes from
7. Helps encourage children to eat their vegetables
8. Giving children opportunities to play in nature may help reduce symptoms of DHD

Some suggestions to get children involved and interested in creating a garden include:

• Keep it simple.
• Give children their own garden space. (This does not have to be big. You can start with a large container or a few pots.)
• Involve older children in the planning and design of the garden.
• Use lightweight, easy-to-handle, correct-sized tools and garden equipment.
• Encourage children to dig in the dirt. (Younger children love making mud pies)
• Grow interesting plants such as sunflowers, corn, pumpkins, tomatoes and strawberries.
• Use a trellis or teepee to grow beans or sweet peas.
• Plant flowers that attract butterflies, ladybirds and other interesting insects or birds.
• Make a scarecrow.
• Install a water feature, a birdbath or a sundial.
• Set up a worm farm.
• Visit community gardens, children’s farms or botanical gardens for ideas.
• Children like large, brightly colored flowers and vegetables that grow quickly. Plants such as sunflowers, corn and pumpkins are good examples.

You should also consider using varieties of plants that have sensory and textural qualities as well. Examples of great sensory plants include:

• Touch – e.g. woolly lamb’s ear, succulents (such as aloe vera), bottlebrush species, snapdragons
• Taste – e.g. basil, strawberries, peas, rosemary, carrots, cherry tomatoes
• Smell – e.g. jasmine, sweet peas, lavender, pelargoniums, native mint bush, lemon balm
• Bright color – e.g. daffodils, rainbow chard, marigolds, pansies, sunflowers
• Sound – e.g. corn, bamboo and grasses rustle against each other when the wind blows

Choose activities that suit the child’s age.

Suggestions include:

• Watering the garden
• Digging
• Picking flowers
• Planting vegetables, fruits and flowers in the correct season
• Feeding the worms and using the ‘worm tea’ from the worm farm as fertiliser
• Picking vegetables and fruits when they are ready to eat
• Preparing healthy food, such as making salads and preparing school lunches
• Craft activities using harvested seeds, plants and flowers
• Composting, recycling and mulching
• Weeding
• Gathering seeds and dried flowers
• Deadheading flowers
• Preparing the soil with organic fertilizer
• Replanting and re-potting.

Volunteer opportunities for The Little Acorn Garden (email Mindy Atwood at littleacorngarden@gmail.com to volunteer!)

• Planting
• Weeding
• Composting
• Teaching
• Watering

Books for families interested in gardening:

The Best-Ever Step-by-Step Kid’s First Gardening: Fantastic Gardening Ideas For 5 To 12 Year-Old, Jenny Hendy

Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth, Mary McKenna Siddals

Gardening for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Special Educational Needs Engaging with Nature to Combat Anxiety, Promote Sensory Integration and Build Social Skills, Natasha Etherington

Not for me, please!: I choose to act green, Maria Godsey

Ready, Set, Grow!: A Kid’s Guide to Gardening, Rebecca Spohn

Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children, Sharon Lovejoy

Square Foot Gardening with Kids: Learn Together – Gardening Basics, Mel Bartholomew

Sunflower Houses: Inspiration From the Garden–A Book for Children and Their Grown-Ups, Sharon Lovejoy

Trowel and Error: Over 700 Organic Remedies, Shortcuts, and Tips for the Gardener, Sharon Lovejoy o=e.length;o>i