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Gunnison/Crested Butte Colorado
Family Activity Guide
Summer 2007
Features -- A great outdoor activity for the whole family
By Krista Hildebrandt

If your kids love to get dirty, why not enjoy an activity together that can make everyone happy? Your kids love getting dirty, they like watching birds and nurturing worms and bugs, and maybe they'll even get excited at harvest time to actually eat something that they helped grow. What's in it for you? You get bundles of color in your yard and your family can eat healthy homegrown food. For generations, gardening has been a great outdoor activity for the whole family.

Start from the ground up. With a packet of seeds or a few starter plants, you and your kids can enjoy the life cycles of lots of interesting flowers and vegetables. You can start growing seeds in small starter pots, or wait until temperatures warm up and plant directly in the ground. Visit your local garden center for local favorites.

• Violas and nasturtiums -- Edible, pretty, and easy to grow, these flowers are also very attractive to hummingbirds.
• Sunflowers -- Watch how quickly they grow. Your kids will be amazed when the plants are taller than them.
• Carrots -- What a surprise to see something orange come out of the ground.
• Potatoes -- After seeing one carrot per plant come out of the ground, kids will be amazed that so many potatoes come from one plant. Choose varieties that are blue or red. When you cook them, their brilliant colors are sure to thrill everyone.

Help them build, but give kids their own space in the garden and you'll be surprised and delighted in the choices they make. Encourage them to add birdhouses, trellises, benches, and garden ornaments to express themselves. Use rich, organic mulched soil and build a great home for worms. Help and encourage your kids, but mostly just watch them. They will surprise you by how capable they are to care for their own garden.

The Earth is for our children. Sadly, most kids think food comes from the grocery store. Encourage your children to learn about the environment and how the soil is actually connected to the sky. Focus on fertilizers that are not only harmless to your kids, but will actually encourage beneficial insects to call your garden "home." Order bug-kits that provide the opportunity to watch a ladybug grow from a tiny spot, or watch a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis. Teach your kids that life begins and ends with a seed.

Gardening can be a time to learn. Playing in your garden will teach your family many things. You can all learn how to compost, how to keep your garden moist while conserving water at the same time, how to recycle, and how to follow the life cycles of the birds, the bees, and the plants. It's time spent outside, watching life. This is the time for all of you to touch the earth, together.

Krista Hildebrandt has lived and gardened in Crested Butte for over 21 years. She graduated from Western State College in Gunnison. She has gardened in Minnesota, Colorado, and Hawaii before creating The Alpengardener. Her winters are spent on the ski slopes as a ski patroller. She, her husband, and two boys spend the summers gardening, camping, and exploring as many places as possible.