Today is the Vernal Equinox when the day is the same legnth as the night. That also means it's officially the first day of Spring! Take advantage of any Spring break your family is having this year and get out into the garden to work on projects. What better way to celebrate Mother Nature waking up?

There are gardening projects for children of all ages. Here are some ideas for your wee ones:

2-4 year olds will enjoy helping to sew seeds. Guild your little ones on how to sprinkle the seeds into prepared beds. Teach them how to gently cover up the seeds and water them in. Kids will also do very well planting seeds in starter trays or small pots. Have them help make and place signs so you both remember what got planted where! Use this as an opportunity to get your kids to eat more vegetables, even very young children are more likely to eat vegetables that they helped grow themselves!

5-6 year olds will love helping plant bedding plants. Come by the nursery and pick up one of our free planting guides, use it to help teach your children how deep to dig the whole and how far down to place the plant. Teach them how to water their new plants in and how to weed around them.

7-12 year olds will enjoy helping plan out the garden. Go out into the garden together and talk about what you'd like to see where. Make notes about areas of sun and shade and what side of the house that part of the garden is on. Bring your children down to the nursery and pick up one of our free garden design packets. Walk around the nursery and look at plants together. Teach your child about how some things like to grow in sun while some plants need more shade. Make your final choices together and get it all down on the garden design packet. At home prep the soil together and teach your child the difference between organic gardening and non organic, especially if you are working with edible plants. Talk about garden maintenance and to drive home the point give your child their own small area to be responsible for. Let the watch what happens when you do a good job... and what happens when you forget to water!

Teens and tweens 12 and up will really respond well to having more responsibility. Give your child their own large area such as the vegetable garden, or a bed or two in the back yard. Give them a budget to work with for the plants and make sure they have the right tools. Provide gardening books for them to reference, Sunset is a great book to start out with. Pick up one of our free garden design packets and sit back and see what your child comes up with. Who knows, you might ask them to design your whole garden next year!

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