Gardening with children

[mrsbatista]

I have young children ages 1-8, they love when I talk about growing things and making a garden. Are there any good starter projects to do with children? Also how do I make it fun for them?

 

[DrCase]

My kids grew stuff in there sand box

 

[Mela]

Well, I think growing bean sprouts could be a great way to start. The rapid growth could be really encouraging. Oh and radishes too! You can harvest them quite quickly.

 

[maddie]

My son is always helping me with gardening. He has his name on some of the tomato plants we raised. He used to love growing grass.. so I would give him a tray of moist compost and soaked wheat seeds and he grew our wheat grass when he was younger.. now he takes care of my basil.. one of the easiest plants to grow.

 

[Yatte]

My oldest are 3 years old now and she loves to help me in the garden. She helps me to cut of the dying roses, and put all the leaves in a bag for drying. When we plant veg seedlings she has her own to plant and have to help with caring for them and weeding their patch. She can now show me what is weeds and what not. I let her identify the fruit and veg in the garden, and all the colors of the flowers as well. She helps me pick strawberries, tomatoes, beans, lettuce and a manner of other fruits and veg. I let her taste the herbs, and she helps me to take the flowers of the basil. In winter she helps raking the leaves, and carrying away the twigs when we prune the fruit trees. She helps watering the pot plants as well.

The big thing is to make it fun for them and not work, let them see the results of everything you do, and if they are older, give them their own little piece of garden where they can plant and care for what they want to plant there.

 

[ACSAPA]

You could take an egg carton or one of those little seed starter trays and help your kids plant some herb seeds so they can see the little sprouts grow.
I'm an adult and I still get excited when I see the first sprouts from a recently planted seed. I get attached to plants that I have grown from a seed more than established plants I buy at the garden center.

 

[mrsbatista]

Thank you so much everyone. These are all great ideas, I can't wait to get started with my 5 children. I am more than happy to hear any other ideas. Thanks again.

 

[suzjbibby]

My children have their own little garden beds about 2 foot square and I took them to the garden centre where we chose punnets of seedlings to grow, we chose petunias, alyssum, sweet william, marigold and zinnias all are easy to grow and make a good show. They planted out the seedlings and we watched them grow and flower, and collected seeds from the dying heads, next spring we will replant the seeds and see what coulurs come up

 

[mrsbatista]

suzjbibby, that's great. It sounds like they had so much fun picking out things to grow. I hope that my children will be happy to see all of the new things and all of the plants that they can grow.