Everybody is busy with garden and yard work during these summer months, it seems, and so are we. What we often talk about when tending to our garden and yard is home schooling, and what our little girl will be able to learn and be taught from all the things you can observe in even the smallest vegetable garden or yard. Let me share a few examples here.

We are growing tomatoes, like most everybody else who grows vegetables does. A tomato is a very interesting plant, a "hands on" plant, so to speak.

In early spring, you can start growing tomatoes from seed inside the house. Making paper pots together can be an interesting thing, or starting the seed in little starters. The little girl will enjoy seeing the seed and what comes from it, and it will help her understand God's greatness, for He makes it possible that from a tiny round yellow dry seed, a big leafy plant develops that ultimately bears edible fruit. She will also look at the seed inside a tomato with new eyes. The basic logic of biology, the bio-logic of God's creation, thus becomes tangible.

If so inclined, we can build a cold frame together to put the seedlings in, and let her experience the heat the sun produces for the new plants behind the glass, even though it is still cold outside. The processes going on here are more likely grouped in the field of physics, another lesson to be learned and used, for example when it comes to building a cabin and deciding which way the windows will go, in order to use best what we are given. A well placed cabin with well placed windows will save energy for heating in the winter time and provide daylight inside the house for the longest possible time. This would provide a good lesson in general stewardship, and a cold frame is a good practical example.

Read on here:

The Garden, God's Creation, and Stewardship Part 2

The Garden, God's Creation, and Stewardship Part 3