What the Garden Actually Gives the Mom

If you've ever told yourself you're gardening with your kids purely for their benefit — it's educational, it's screen-free, it gets them outside — you're not wrong. But you might be leaving out the bigger part of the story.

Here in Houston, where the growing season stretches long and the heat asks a lot of every gardener, it's easy to frame family gardening as something you're doing for your children. A teaching tool. A summer activity. A box to check.

After years of gardening alongside my own kids, Vandhana of Vibrant Rainbow Gardens has come to a different conclusion: the garden was never just for them.

✦ RESOURCES & LINKS ✦

• Free Checklist — 15 Kids Gardening Activities: vibrantrainbowgardens.com/15_kids_gardening_activities
• GrowSona Quiz: vibrantrainbowgardens.com/quiz
• Follow along on Instagram: @VibrantRainbowGardens

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Okay, you're already managing snacks sunscreens, screen time limits and the fact that someone always needs something the second the exact second you sit down. The last thing you need is one more thing to do, right? This episode is not that. Hey, welcome back to Grow With Vibrant Rainbow Gardens. Hi, I'm Wanda, your Houston-based organic gardening coach. I want to tell you up front what today's episode is actually about. A couple of weeks ago I gave you the activities 15 ways to get your kids into the garden this summer. All of them Texas friendly, all of them screen-free. And if you have not grabbed it yet, I will link it in the show notes. Go get it. It is good. But today I want to talk about something nobody really tells you. What the garden gives back to you, the mom, the one who started all of this. Because somewhere between the planting and the harvesting, and don't pull that, and yes, you can eat that, something happens. It happened to me so so gradually that I actually almost missed it. That's what we are getting into today. When I first started gardening with my kids, I told myself it was actually for them. It is educational, it is greenery, it gets them outside. All really good reasons. So here is what I want to tell you. I never sat down, sat my kids down, and said, Okay, today we are going to learn about herbs. Today we are going to talk about where food comes from. I never made a lesson planned for gardening. I never printed a gardening worksheet. I just kept showing up in my garden. And one day I turned around, my kids, they were actually in the garden with me. They were making their own herb concoctions, just grabbing things and eating, making their own salads, whatever they could reach. I also have basil in every single bed, so it kind of works out. They help me plan what we are going to be growing each season, they help me harvest, they know which plants are edible and which ones are not. Full stop. Something we picked up at a farmer's market or an Asian grocery store, their first instinct now is to save the seeds so that we can try and growing it. I did not teach them that. This came from years of being in the garden together. What is this thing that nobody tells you when they say garden with your kids? Let me tell you. The first one is presence without performance. When you're actually doing it and not just talking about it, you're not trying to entertain them, you're not trying to teach them. You don't have to be on, you're just there doing it with your hands, watching things grow. And that is so rare as a mom, that's just quite side-by-side time where nobody needs anything from you except for you to be just be there. You don't have to entertain them, you just have to be there. That is so rare. Especially for young kids. Even if your kids are in it with you. And when your kids are in that slower rhythm, rhythm that's natural, even for like you know, five, ten, fifteen minutes. Visible shifts. It shifts in you too. It shifts in you, it shifts in your kids as well. It's the slowing down. It's the grounding. It's the deep breathed breathing that you do. The fourth one is there is always something that is growing. So even if something does doesn't work out on the days that when it feels like nothing is working, when you're tired, when you're exhausted, when you're behind on your to-do list, when your house is a mess, when your uh when your um work is a mess, when your sleep is a big hot, big mess. And you can walk outside, and there is always something growing. Something you planted is still there, it's still growing, still flowering, still producing fruit. That is not nothing. That is actually everything. That is hope for the future. This week's it's gonna be a very short um episode today. So I wanna give you something before we actually close. Like a permission slip. You are allowed to garden because it is good for you, not just because it is educational for your kids, though it is, not because it's screen free time, though it is, not because it checks a box on the good mom list, also it does, but it fills something in you that needs filling, it slows you down, it slows down your kids, and it grounds you all. You don't have you do not have to justify garden as a teaching tool, you do not have to turn every moment into a lesson plan. You are allowed to be there because it is where you feel like yourself, it is the one place where something is always making progress, even on your worst days. And here's what I know for sure. When you show up for yourself in that garden, your kids absorb something they cannot get from a lesson plan or a screen, or even from the most intentional parenting. They absorb a woman who knows how to tend something, who knows how to be patient, who knows how to keep showing up even when things don't grow the way she planned. That's the payoff nobody puts on the seed packet, and it's the most important one. Okay, I do want to make sure you have the practical stuff too, because I know for some of you who are listening and thinking, hey, I still don't know where to start. That's why I created that uh free checklist. I will link it in the show notes as well. It's just a list of 15 easy kid gardening activities, all of them are um uh Texas friendly, summer friendly, all of them are screen-free, and all of them are designed to make it easy for you to just show up. You don't need to plant too much, it's just um it's a good starting point, easy starting point. And if you're new to vibrant rainbow gardens and you're not sure what kind of gardener you're even you even are yet, take this growth in a quiz. It takes about two or three minutes, it'll tell you um what kind of gardening persona you are. Thank you so much for being here today. If today's episode resonated, next week will be a practical follow-through. The more gardens we grow, the more vibrant our communities become. See you soon. Before you go, I have one small ask. And it actually has nothing to do with algorithms or downloads. If this episode made you think of one person, a friend, a neighbor, a fellow parent, or someone who's always said, I want to grow a garden, I want to grow my own vegetables and fruits. I just don't know where to start. Would you share this episode with them? This podcast grows almost entirely through word of mouth, and every share helps someone realize that gardening doesn't have to be complicated or overwhelming. It can be gentle, it can fit real life, it can start right where they are. And if you're listening and wondering what kind of gardener you are or what your next best step actually is, I created a free quiz to help with that. It's called the Grosona quiz. And it helps you figure out your gardening style, your biggest challenges, and what will actually work for your season of life. Whether you're a total beginner or just need clarity. You can take it at vibrant rainbow gardens.com forward slash quiz. And I will send you personalized guidance right after me. Thank you for being here, for listening, and for helping this little garden of a podcast grow. I'll see you in the next episode.