Gardening With Children
by Catherine Wilcock
Simple gardening with your children is rewarding, fun and may get them eating a few more veggies! You can even do it without a garden.
A good start would be to grow some cress seeds on a wad of kitchen roll or cotton wool, water them every day, if they dry out, they die. Once they have two leaves you eat them – talk about the taste and smell. Your children can then say that they have been growing the new “in thing”, microgreens! Full of vitamins and minerals too. These will grow all year round in the house, so a good project for a rainy afternoon.
Another popular indoor project is to grow a Grass Head – all you need are some old tights, wood shavings (used for pet bedding), grass seed, scraps of fabric, elastic bands and PVA glue. You can find instructions on the internet. Great fun, and when the hair (grass) grows, your little ones can give it a haircut again and again. They can even make up stories about it. Find instructions that you need to read (instead of a video), and get the children to read them as far as they can, this helps your children to connect reading with something useful and interesting. You don’t need to print, read straight off the screen.
Try the magic of growing from vegetable peelings, pop the top of a carrot in a saucer of water in a warm light place, and see it grow new leaves!
If you have dried peas or beans – or pea/bean seeds for the garden, grow one or two in a jar, sandwiched between the outside of the jar and some paper towel. Keep a centimetre of water in the bottom, and see how it grows, what comes first, roots or shoots? You can make this into an experiment if you fancy, assemble a few jars, put one in the dark, one on a windowsill, one with no water. Try other large seeds too. See which grows best, record the results in a table or on a graph – a fascinating way to use some of the maths they learn at school.
Flowers are fun and pretty to grow with children. Sweet peas or sunflowers grow quickly and are good for beginners. Start them off indoors and grow on in the garden, in the ground or pots once the frosts have passed, with a support so they don’t fall over. You can have a competition to see whose grows tallest.
When you grow flowers, children can watch to see if bees are visiting them and see if there are different types. Take the spent flowers off the plants (deadheading) and you will get more. Children enjoy doing this – supervised if they are very young and using scissors. You can leave a few to set seed so that the children see what the seed heads look like. Let them ripen and collect the seed to use next year instead of buying it. Keep in an old envelope – label it so you know what the seeds are. Snapdragons are a great choice, bees love them, they flower for a long time if they are deadheaded, and have seedpods that are easy to see, allow them to go brown before collecting the seed inside. Satisfying and pretty to grow, especially in a pot.
Now onto outdoor gardening; children love digging and watering! Buy some seeds together, let them choose a few things to grow, start them off in pots or trays, or sow directly into the soil depending on the seeds. Root vegetables like carrots or radish go directly into the soil. Clear the soil of weeds first, no need to dig it vigorously, although your toddlers will love the digging part, no harm if they do! The modern approach is to limit digging, it helps to preserve the structure of the soil. Then follow the instructions on the back of the packet. Wait, watch them grow and then eat when they are ready.
If you have room let your children each have a small plot to grow things in, 50cm by 30cm is fine, or give them a large pot. A growing space of their very own is special to a child. It shows you trust them; they decide what to grow, see what works and what doesn’t. It gives them responsibility, they need to remember to water, check on progress, and can eat everything they grow.
Radish, spring onions and lettuce are good to start with; they all germinate (start to grow) quickly, keeping the interest of children. Try peas – let the children eat them straight out of the pod, sweet and delicious. My niece began eating peas this way – she had always refused them before! Carrots are great too, and you can plant French marigolds next to them – pretty and they deter carrot fly.
Put a few sprouting potatoes (from your cupboard) into a large pot and watch them grow. Children love finding them in the soil once they are ready (after flowering).
If you are inspired to try gardening with the children, have a go, even if you have not gardened before – learn together! When you are outside, wear clothes and footwear that can get dirty, part of the attraction of gardening is the chance to get dirty. Look out for insects, worms and creepy crawlies, find out their names, count how many different types you find – they are almost all good for the garden. Find out together what they do.
The most rewarding things about gardening with your children is spending time together, taking your time to do something productive, talking to each other. Children will often share thoughts and troubles when feeling relaxed and just generally chatting (a bit like confidences shared in the car). Walking round, checking the plants is a lovely way to spend a few minutes at the end of the day. Remember, there is no pressure to have the best plants, the reward is in growing and nurturing them and enjoying an activity together without rushing.
Happy gardening – and remember sometimes things just don’t grow! Try something else next time.