One cool gardening plant that is fun to grow is pumpkin vines. Pumpkins grow really fast. So fast you can even visually notice a difference in size day to day. The better you care for your pumpkins, the super larger they get and around Halloween time you can carve them and cook the seeds. I've wanted to do that myself but I don't have the space with plants already occupying my small yard. But my neighbor has vines and every year I see him harvest his pumpkins and he always enjoys growing them.

We are halloween fiends, and so we naturally have tried to grow our own pumpkins. We have not had a lot of success, though. I think the soil is supposed to be sandy, or on a hill, or some other such thing...???

We have a plot at the city's Community Garden. Actually, we have two next to each other. Earlier in the Spring, Duncan wasn't doing well in the lawn. He'd just sit still and watch, occasionally turning to see more things, but not moving from the spot he was set in. We took him to the garden on Saturday and he started a little timid but by the time we were ready to leave, he'd tasted dirt a few times, deciding he didn't like it. He'd gotten brave and crawled all over our plot, chasing down errant plant tags and launching after metal garden markers for stuff I planted weeks ago. It looks like he's going to be fine out at the garden. That's good since we'll be out there three times a week and at the Master Gardener Display Gardens that I'm in charge of at least one more time a week. My wife was concerned that he might be allowed out on the area that had beets and spinach planted. I figured that it would hurt more if he had a reason to dislike the garden than if he somehow hurt a few plants that would be producing excess food for our family as it is.

From seeing kids out at the CSA farm and some of the places I've volunteered, It seems like the best plants are the weird ones or the ones that they can turn into something or the ones they can eat right off the plants. Pumpkins become Jack-o-lanterns, obviously. But I've seen kids go crazy over asparagus, birdhouse gourds, sugar snap peas, and sunflowers. We're going to have some 10' sunflowers this year. I have a seed head that is nearly 2' in diameter that I'm going to take five seeds to plant from and then roast the rest.

Here at home, I'm trying to set up a series of gardens that he'll be able to feel part of. What I'm hoping most of all, though, is that he takes pride in our hop yard. A couple of the plants I have have a habit of growing over a foot each day in the middle of July. It's amazing. They go up a 16' trellis very slowly through May and June and then kick it up in July. Plus I can always use a hand at harvesting and processing the hops in the Fall, so if he likes the plants, hopefully he'll be able to help me with that in a few years.

I guess what I'm saying is that there are a lot of ways to find room for garden activities for the kids. Our goal is to provide the environment for our children to feel a connection to the food they eat, not taking it for granted. Green beans in a can didn't go through a substantially different process than what we canned at home. But when you watered it, picked it, and then eat it, it is better in so many ways.