Show your kids just how much fun growing food can be and youāll not only harvest luscious tomatoes, juicy watermelons and scrumptious green beans, you will have a bumper crop of fun, laughter, togetherness and learning!
Winter around my house always brought long hours of pouring over seed catalogs and dreaming about the garden Dad and I would plant in the Spring. Some years I was more interested in this process than others, but for my dad gardening was a constant. When our kids were little I wanted to pass along his love of gardening. Here are some ideas to encourage that love.
Building Gardening Excitement by Including Kids In Every Step
This can start in the Winter, but if uber pre-planning isnāt for you then wait until all the wonderful seedling varieties show up in your local garden center. You could add to the anticipation by marking off on a calendar the days until the plants are due to arrive at the nursery or garden center.
Let Kids pick the Plants or Seeds
Make gardening a family fun time and let them be personally engaged by picking some plants (or seeds) that are theirs. Over the years weāve had purple beans, okra and carrots and striped tomatoes! We discovered that we are traditionalists and returned more common colored produce, but
Let Them Get Dirty? Encourage it!
Have them put on play clothes, their Crocs, gloves, and a happy gardening face, and let them get dirty. Without freaking out about it. Research shows microbes found in plain old dirt are actually beneficial and at the end of the day, kids are washable.
Show them how to prepare the garden bed, how to pull weeds, and how to break up clumps of dirt.
If you donāt have room for a garden plot, you can create a smaller version in pots that fit in on a sunny balcony or window sill.
Show them how to correctly space plants, how to gently pull plants out of their plastic containers, loosen the roots, and place them in the ground. Let them stand in the dirt, play with earthworms, and find potato bugs.
Let them water the plants, clean up their workspace and be proud. Let them have fun and laugh at all the dirt they are wearing. (Gardening tip: lavender oil is great on mosquito bites!)
The Big Payoffā¦Eating the Harvest.
The best part everāeating the harvest and celebrating hard work.
Instant gratification is a great thing for little gardeners, so consider grabbing some plants like this lettuce that are basically ready to harvest immediately.
By choosing veggies to grow and making a big deal about it when itās time to pick, clean, and eat them you encourage kids to try new things, instill pride in a job well done and give them an appreciation for how all their food is grown.
Your kids will love being able to run to their garden to pick the ripe tomatoes, grab a few sweet basil leaves and some strawberries and help make a wonderful homegrown salad and dessert.
Let Them Count, Observe, Record, and Assess Progress.
Keeping track of which plants do well in certain conditions, keeping track of harvest, and assessing the taste of the veggies in your garden is a super way of taking gardening a step further for kids. This can be done in simple charts, on notepaper, or in a spiral āgardening notebookā.
This year, weāre going to keep track of our garden with a Garden Plan and Harvest Record, and it serves a few purposes:
- help track of the plants that we are cultivating this year
- keep track of the weather this summer
- count the number of plants we yield
- evaluate the taste of each plant
Weāre using a Garden Plan and Harvest Record this year for two reasons:
- We had no record of which tomatoes we loved and which we didnāt from last yearās garden; and
- Iām hoping that this will be something that Owen likesāthe record-keeping, counting, and assessing.
Iām hoping this may renew his relationship with nature.
One part of this chart is a record of the plants weāre using this year, the Garden Plan, which we completed today. It simply numbers each plant and notes its type and variety.
The other part is a Harvest Record that weāll fill out each week of the summer.
The Harvest Record will record the weekās weather very simply by circling the weather icon that we experienced: big sun (for hot and sunny); smaller sun (warm and sunny); tiny sun; cloud; rain cloud; and lightning for stormy weather.Ā My kids are huge weather fans, so Iām hoping they dig this part.
The last thing the Harvest Record will do is keep track of taste: this week, do we like the veggie or not? Weāll note it simply by circling the smiley face or the frown face.
Weāve never done this before, so Iām hoping the kids are into it. Sticking it to a clipboard that we will keep hanging in the kitchen will, I hope, remind us to use it. Iām also hoping that at the end of the season, we can look back at our weekly Harvest Records and determine which plants we want to use again; it can be a cool synthesis activity to look back at the weather, our harvest, and the plant information to figure out what made some work and not others.
And thatās itājust a few ways that kids can help with the gardening no matter their age. Whether itās helping pick out plants, reminding us to water them, helping pick cherry tomatoes off the vine, or counting and eating, kidsāfamiliesācan benefit in so many ways by gardening together.
We cordoned off a corner of our garden with some extra bricks a friend had laying around, and that’s my son’s special area. He has some flowers and all of his own gardening tools, and he loves it.
Amy–
Awesome. I never thought to give a whole section to kids–I may do that next year! Smart!!
My kids LOVE helping with the garden! This year I gave them each a little window box planter that was “theirs”. They got to choose what to plant in it. My daughters picked peas, and my son chose carrots. Then my youngest picked my oldest daughter’s pea plant and my oldest burst into tears… At least she had three more pea plants!
Ahhhh! Gotta love it! Thanks for sharing, Maryanne! You are not the only one who’s mentioned giving kids a spot of their own to garden and care for–I think I’ll divide our side garden into three parts and let Maddy, Owen, and Cora choose the seeds for their own part. THANK you for sharing–love the idea (and glad your oldest had 3 more pea pods!)
first off, my kids are exactly the same way about sponge bob. they had never seen a single show and yet professed their love for him! how do these things happen?! i blame school… š as for gardening, my kids love to help. i loved yr post bc now i have more ideas on how to let them help, other than letting them water and take away my garbage. (great mom i am, huh? i need to get some more plants so this time, i’ll be sure to let them help pick!
Mae! YES! So happy that I’m not alone w/ the Sponge Bob thing–so funny. And thank you for writing–I hope it does help just a teeny bit. Let me know how it goes, my friend!
You are the best, Amy! Some years it’s a family effort in the garden, some years, it’s just me and some years…it’s no one and I find “surprises” on my porch from my mother-in-law!
I was at a wedding shower last weekend in PA, haha! I’ll look for you at the wedding ; )
Maria! No way–maybe I’ll see you in July. . . what a riot if we end up at the same wedding! I totally know what you mean about changes each year–it’s the cycle of family interests, I suppose! Thanks so much for reading, Maria!
Love, LOVE this post! š So many ways to encourage kids to get outdoors & have fun growing stuff! Brilliant! š
Catherine! THANK YOU! You so rock for taking the time to make my day.
This is a great post with some really useful ideas.
I would also add that I don’t do any activity in the garden with the kids that lasts more than about 10 minutes and I make sure it’s all prepared in advance because they have such short attention spans. However, if they have their own spot, they often find their own activities which will last a whole lot longer.
My kids have their own gardens – as well as a garden den – which are probably their favourite places in the whole back yard. I’ve attached a link to that.
I will also attach a link to my pre-school gardening club activity list if that’s OK as this gives a few ideas of gardening activities to do with younger children.
Dawn!! Of course! Link back please to the gardening club! Thank you, thank you for your ideas and response. Totally appreciate it, and I love the 10 min time frame. You totally get the kid-gardener psyche. Thanks for reminding us all!!
Amy, this is such a great post. So many wonderful ideas for getting out and getting your hands dirty. I myself am an appalling yet hopeful gardener š My son (26months) discovered mulching worms for the first time last weekend with Granddad. He LOVED it! Think I might have to brush up on my gardening skills š
Would love it if you popped over to An Amazing Child and shared this with our Outdoor Play Friday Link-up š
Kate–
Many thanks, my friend. For the record, I am a lousy gardener. . . but I totally pretend I’m awesome–same goes for a lot of what I do in life, right? š
Mulching worms is probably tops for a 2 yr old. . . I will certainly head over for the linky. Thanks, friend!
Thanks Amy š
And you’re so right, pretend you know what you are doing and no one will ask otherwise. š
I love the Harvest recording sheets! And don’t worry about Owen. I grew up in a family that had a huge garden and I HATED it. I always swore I would NEVER have a garden. But lately, it’s kind of grown on me. My husband is a really good gardener so I like to help out. I still don’t love it but I pretend for the kids sake š
Jackie! Thank you! So interesting that you were the ‘Owen’ of your family. . . maybe he’ll come around and be a nature ‘liker’ after all. Or at least maybe he’ll pretend for his kids? Or help with his future wife’s garden?
Oh my gosh, Amy, you are so organised! Wow!
I can totally relate your little guys ‘Mommy I don’t really like nature’. I never did either as a kid. Actually, I didn’t until I became a parent really! I was a girly-girl who never liked to get dirty, I was always bug-o-phobic, and especially afraid of spiders – to the point where I couldn’t walk on grass at all unless I had boots on, in case one jumped up on me! (you know how spiders can jump ;-p ) Thankfully, now I love to be outside with my family, and hopefully they will grow up enjoying the outdoors. Maybe your little guy will grow out of this phase too.
Thanks for linking up to Outdoor Play! Hope to see you again next week!
Amy, oh my! I am screwing up your whole garden link up. I just tried to link up a second post called “seed sort” to your garden link up. When I did, I accidently linked up my Garden Books post again and when I tried to fix that I linked it up… again!!! If you can somehow delete entries 16 & 17, that would be great. So sorry about that!
Jackie! I totally dont’ care. I’m just happy you’ve linked back, my friend–at this point in my life, it takes a whole lot more than a double-linkup to make me upset or angry–xoxo
My kids do help in the garden! They believe they own the plants, which actually excites me because they have take such ownership in the process.
Awesome!! I know–it’s not always easy to have little ones in the garden–but they do take ownership of ‘their’ bounty in the end!