With the talk of food shortage these days, it is certainly a great time to get your hands dirty and start learning about gardening with your children or expanding the garden! For those who have less space for planting, there are options like square foot gardening, pot planting or even vertical garden. It is definitely a great way to understand how God has provided for us all through history. The whole family can also learn lots of truth pertaining to life through the gardening experience!!
I am no expert in planting actually, it’s my husband and the children doing most of the work on the land here =P However, please kindly let me share our observations. First of all, a land would not yield without God’s blessings. Secondly, soil is the key. No good nutritious plants will come out of bad soil. Two potatoes can look the same but with very different levels of nutrients. Lastly, you will need to get in touch with the nature/weather. For example, a night of frost can kill all the uncovered sweet potatoes seedlings outside.
The following are the vegetables that we found relatively easy to plant: potatoes, onion, green onion, squash, cucumber, cayenne pepper, asparagus, radish, beets, carrot, garlic (we plant ours in Sept), zucchini, tomatoes, peas, basil, cilantro, parsley, kale and lettuce, etc. The weather that year would also play a big part.
If you have not watched the film Back to Eden yet, I highly recommend you to spend some time to enjoy it!!! You soul would be uplifted after this man shows you how God loves and cares about us and how great His mercy is through his garden even if you do not plan to do any gardening.
Many people visited his garden after watching the film, that is the reason why there are many garden tours on his land like this one which are also amazing as well!
Here is a little garden tour for fun by our children 3 years ago.
One fast track way to eat fresh vegetables is eating sprouts. Thus, growing sprouts is also a wonderful thing to learn with the children during this time! They are easy to manage, fast to grow, economical, and could also get 40 times more nutrients at times than the veggies we eat normally. Some sprouts to try are mung beans, sunflower seeds, broccoli seeds, peas….so you do need to get seeds and beans!
A little more information to get started: Is It Time to Start Growing Your Own Food?
Yet another way to eat vegetables which needs more work, but worth all the efforts. That is fermenting vegetables that you can buy now. There are still cabbages to turn into sauerkraut, which can be stored for more than a year. With its probiotics and vitamin C, your immune system will be boosted as well.
Will there also be shortage on drugs? You never know. However, it is not quite a great habit to depend on drugs anyway, therefore, why not learning more about natural remedies now as well? It is again another wonderful subject to learn with our children about how God cares and provides for us through the nature He created, which can help with most of our health situations. I would suggest researching/studying on the following as a start:
- Supplements : vitamin C, A, D3 & K2, zinc, magnesium, grape fruit seed extract, activated charcoal
- Herbs and spices : echinacea, yarrow, elderberry, rosehip, chamomile, licorice, turmeric, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, aloe vera, comfrey, plantain
- Essential Oils (diffuse or topical-diluted) : rosemary, thyme, tea tree, eucalyptus, peppermint
- Coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, cranberry juice
Here you go a lesson plan!!! =) Have Fun!