Gardening at the time of Pandemic for a healthy mindset growth in kids

Hi, I am Priyadarshani Dwivedi from Muscat, Oman. I study in class 4 G in the Indian School of Al Mabela. I live in Muscat with my younger brother Prabhav and mummy Rajni and papa Priy.

My mother is a homemaker and takes care of my family. She cooks good food for all of us. My father is a Professor at National University.

I always loved my school, friends and teachers. But since March 2020, after the start of the COVID 19 pandemic, my school is closed and I miss my school. We had great, fun-filled days at school. A lot of physical and educational activities. That keeps us happy and healthy. But after the pandemic, all stopped suddenly and schools started teaching online so that our learning continues.

But it started new issues like less physical activities due to strict lockdown. We had to stop visiting the playground, parks, and social gatherings.

It was a difficult phase of life. But we had to follow these rules for the betterment of society.

During this time my parents did their best to take care of our health and happiness.

I also started playing Roblox games on my iPad. I learned lots of new games and now I can create T-shirts, games, avatars etc. in this game. (See my T-shirt creation in this foto)

Apart from that my family started gardening in our villa. Since October 2020 we are growing coriander, reddish, carrot, marigold flowers, potato, and tomato, chilly inside our villa. I always join my parents in gardening activities. It is fun and involves lots of physical activity that keeps us happy and healthy. My father taught me that health is wealth and by doing physical activities in the garden we keep our body physically active.

During gardening, I learnt how farmers and gardeners prepare the ground. We dig deep using a shovel, then mixed potting soil and fertilizers and remove stones and waste material from the ground. Then we wet the soil with water and left for a few days so that all of these things mix well and ready for seeds. Then my parents bought seeds of carrot, reddish, chilly, tomato from the Lulu hypermarket. We made rows in-ground and put seeds in line so that we can serve plants.

I noticed that reddish seeds germinated faster within 7 days. Then carrot seeds sprouted and I love them a lot. After that coriander leaves started in the garden. Chilly seeds took a long time to germinate. I loved cutting coriander leaves from my garden. We have red cherry tomatoes, spring onion in our garden.

We also made pots filled with soil and planted marigold saplings. Those saplings now flowering and we love to see beautiful marigold flowers. Then my father taught me to make insecticide from neem leaves. It helps to kill insects that were harming our small plants. He made it by boiling neem leaves in water and then cooling. We spray this solution regularly to protect plants.

I also learned how to make home cleaner at home by using orange peels. This liquid is also useful for the growth of plants in the garden. I enjoy watering plants in my garden. Everyday evening time we water plants. I also water the money plant in my study room. I gifted one small pot of marigold to my cousin sister Rashi.I am very happy to share that I learned a lot about plants and how to take care of them. I enjoyed my time with my parents in the garden.

Yesterday we collected a few small dry logs during the evening walk and had a small campfire in our villa and I learned how to cook a few foods in the fire. Though this time is very challenging keeping ourselves happy and healthy is very important. Then only we can make this world happy, healthy, and growing.

Thanks for reading my story and I hope you will like it. I will love to read your replies and suggestions.