We have a major problem in our garden. Besides the weeds and general early spring disorganization. Rocks! They push through from the other side of the fence, and I kind of hate seeing them all over my garden. The fence is old and rickety, so the rocks don’t have much trouble sneaking through and making their way into our garden. This year I decided to do something about it! I’m paying my kids to pick them up and return them to their home. When I was a kid my mom told me about when she was a kid…her dad would pay her a penny for every dandelion flower she picked. Good idea, right? Grandpa was a smart guy. I adjusted for inflation (completely nonscientifically), and told them I’d pay them 5 cents for every rock they picked up and took back. After seeing how many rocks they were collecting in pretty much no time, I retracted my offer and told them I’d pay them 2 cents for every rock. They were still excited to be earning money (actually, a lot of money), so I didn’t feel bad about going cheap! I paid $12.90 for today’s load of rocks. Tomorrow we might go down to 1 cent…
So many rocks! Almost as many as the weeds. Almost.
They come from underneath...
They spill through the broken slat...
They push through!
He was a super star, he collected tons! And earned a lot more money than I expected.
Even Little Princess got excited about it! I’m still not sure she even understood that she was earning money, but she collected 135 rocks.
He totally cleaned up! That would be 18 piles of 20 rocks each.
All rock collecting immediately stopped when they found a potato bug. Which is trying not to get smashed in between his little fingers.
And look! A potato plant is poking through!! One of the potatoes we missed last year…kind of makes me happy we didn’t get them all.
And now for the GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!!!
Super Easy! Just leave a comment with your idea of how to involve kids in yard work or in the garden.
What have you tried? What have you heard about? What do you want to try?
The winner will receive a Western Gardens gift certificate for $30!
For additional entries, post a link to this giveaway on Facebook, then leave a comment telling me that you did.
Or blog about this giveaway and link back to this blog, then leave me a comment saying that you did.
Winner will be randomly chosen…the more comments you leave, the better your chances!
Giveaway closes on Wednesday, April 25th at midnight.
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