Spring is a great time to get outside and start a vegetable garden! The next few weeks we’ll be exploring different activities that kids can do to get excited about growing things!
It is never too early for a child to be out in the garden! From the youngest age, you can involve them in the garden from seeding all the way to harvesting. And research show a myriad of health benefits for children who spend time gardening.
One way to make gardening exciting is to buy seeds that will help engage your child’s sense of awe. Instead of planting orange carrots, go for the rainbow variety. When it is time to harvest, have them guess what color carrot they are going to pull out of the ground. Plant ‘Watermelon’ radishes that are whitish green on the outside but bright magenta on the inside. Get ‘Chioggia’ beets that when cut open reveal alternating white and pink concentric rings. Change things up and grow ‘Yellow Pear’ cherry tomatoes that look just like their name.
When it comes to seeds, they come in so many shapes and sizes. Let your children see and feel the differences between a spikey beet seed, a wrinkly pea seed, and a smooth melon seed. Have them compare the size of a tiny basil seed to a huge bean seed. Even the smallest of toddlers can work on their fine motor skills by placing individual beans in the holes you poke in the ground. Older kids can help with smaller seeds like radishes and carrots, and remember you can always thin them later. Gardening knowledge will extended outside of the garden as kids start making connections between seeds they see in the food they eat and seeds they planted in the garden.
Garden pest can also be a fun thing for kids to explore. Have them help you pick the squash bugs of your zucchini. If you find insect eggs, put them in a plastic container and see what emerges. Those velvety green cabbage worms that are destroying your kale, they make great pets! Put a few of them in a plastic container, keep them fed on kale leaves, and eventually the caterpillars will pupate, and white cabbage butterflies will emerge!
Engaging all of your child’s senses will help hold your child’s attention. Make sure that there is always something for them to munch on in the garden. Plant some perennial herbs like chives, mint, sage, oregano, and thyme. Mix in some easy to grow annuals and biennials like basil, parsley, dill, and cilantro. You may be surprised at what flavors your child likes. Don’t forget to plant edible flowers like nasturtiums or pansies. And no vegetable garden is complete without a cherry tomato plant like a ‘Sungold’, a prolific producer of bite sized sugary goodness.
Gardening with kids can definitely be challenging, especially with younger kids. Your over exuberant little ones may end up picking your tomatoes before they are ripe or plucking the flowers off you squash plants. But gardening with children can also be a rewarding experience that will hopefully put them on the path to becoming lifelong gardeners.