Welcome to the Children’s Garden--a beautiful place to connect with nature and the food cycle! Illustrated with colorful paintings, this charming picture book features a diverse group of children connecting to food through hands-on outdoor activity. Down the road from Woodlawn Avenue, on a street called Sunnyside, there’s a garden patch grown by children who live in the neighborhood. A sign on the garden’s gate says: Children’s Garden, WELCOME! That means: Come in, please. Listen, see, smell, touch--even taste! In rich prose and lush illustrations, this charming picture book shows children as urban farmers, exploring the sights, smells, sensations, and tastes of growing their own food in a community garden. The story invites young readers to enjoy summer’s bounty and the hands-on experience of tending and harvesting it, while the colorful illustrations depict a multicultural community of children learning about and enjoying a sustainable, local food system.

Table of Contents Introduction Planning a Childrens’ Garden Mini Landscape Garden A Pond Garden A Rose Garden A Map Garden Miniature Garden Window boxes and Pots Materials and Size of the Box Attaching Your Window Box Filling Your Window Box Maintaining Your Window Boxes Sink gardens Hanging Baskets Size and Materials for Hanging Baskets Filling Your Basket Maintaining the Baskets Plants for Your Hanging Basket Garden in a Glass Case Bulbs Conclusion Author Bio Publisher Introduction Believe it or not one of the happiest moment in the life of a child, is when he is rooting in mud, in the open sun and air. This is an instinct which is genetically bred in him/her. However, in the 21st century, many parents like to cushion their children so much that they do not want them to go out in the sun, breath in the fresh air, or even expose themselves to the hazards of the polluted atmosphere. So is it a surprise that many children do not know all about the joys of making a children’s garden and gathering their own harvest for the first time in their lives. This book is going to tell you how you can add plenty of joy and interest in the lives of your family members, especially when their children by helping them make their own childrens’ garden. Of course, the first step is not to make them feel that gardening is a duty and something which you have imposed on them. This is immediately going to put their backs up! My grandfather tried reverse psychology on us as kids, to get us to water his large garden. He tried pretending that we were very delicate, and we would catch colds if we were found playing about with his water pipes, sprinklers, and hoses. Needless to say, the moment he left for his club for the evening, we were out in the garden, watering the whole land merrily, and getting thoroughly and enjoyably drenched in the bargain. And we roped in the help of our friends and playmates too whose own grandfathers were also very particular about the health of their own grandchildren, when subjected to the close proximity of hosepipe water! Naturally, this bit of inverse psychology worked equally well, when he said that our hands were too little to do the weeding, and we decided to prove that he was wrong. Naturally, after finding the piles of weeds when he came back from his club, he had to admit that he was wrong and asked grandma to reward us with extra helpings of chocolate cake for being such tireless little soldiers. So you could say that in the initial stages, we did our share of gardening through not so altruistic motives, but soon we got addicted to the feel of soil between our fingers. But then that was natural because man and the earth are bound together, naturally.