Death is a New Beginning — and 6 Other Life Lessons from the Garden

Watching your vegetable garden fade out as fall sets in can be depressing, even jarring-especially for kids. "Something is killing our garden," gasped Aria, Amanda's 5-year-old daughter, after she'd wandered into the backyard one recent morning.

"The sunflowers are keeling over! So is the corn! It's going yellow and shrivelly, Mama, is it sick?"

"What do I tell her?" Amanda asked after Aria's gloomy discovery.

"Tell her it's the cycle of life-that plants die and decompose, so they can feed the soil and help new plants grow," Jeanne offered. "Tell her that death is a new beginning."

The garden is a safe, quiet place where kids can begin to understand the full gamut of essential life skills - from basic stuff like time management to lessons about death, birth, bravery, connectedness, and how to slow down. Here are our top 7 life lessons from the garden:

-By Jeanne Nolan and Amanda Little

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