Have Fun Gardening with Your Kids

Gardening with Kids

Whether you are 9 or 49, sitting down at the dinner table to enjoy piping hot green beans grown and picked by you brings about an enormous sense of satisfaction. Nutrition and taste almost seem like a bonus at that point! Many kids love cucumbers and carrots, but they have never seen a cucumber on its vine nor experienced pulling a long orange carrot out of the earth.

If you have your own garden and you would like to involve your child more, try including him from the beginning. Simply sending him out during the season to pull weeds for an hour will probably just bring on the grumpiness, as he won’t see it as more than a boring chore he would much rather abandon in favor of a bike ride or some TV. But try this: as you plan your garden in the spring, include your child. Haul out a pencil and paper and draw a mock-up of the garden you are planning. Offer him a corner of the garden to be his and his alone. Allow him to pick 3 or 4 of his favorite vegetables and work out where and how he will plant them. Rows, checkers, or circles work well. Urge him to have fun with this!

When it’s time to get your hands dirty, be sure to guide your child. This is especially important if he or she has never done anything in the garden before. When planting the seeds, show them first, and then let them do the rest. Do not aim for perfection; if the seeds are not in a straight line, don’t worry about it.

Throughout the coming weeks, share the job of watering, and when it is time for weeding, do it together-and allow your child to be only responsible for their little patch (and you will probably have to help them a bit as well).

As the little creations grow, point out ways in which the plants are becoming stronger. Watch your child’s face light up when the first baby cucumber erupts from the vine. Visit the vine every day with your child so he can watch it become a full-fledged cucumber. When it is time for to pick the cucumber and take the first bite, remind him that what they are eating began as that one little seed just a couple of months earlier.

Children who grow up with a strong connection with the food they eat will learn to respect the planet and their bodies in a unique way. So even if it means your kids will have to be dragged out to the garden kicking and screaming at the beginning, gently guide them along, and the day will come and they will see that they are capable of creating something exciting and delicious all at once!