Top 5 Gardening Ideas for Kids

When I was a child, the word “gardening” meant yanking out weeds and watching my brother mow the lawn. Needless to say, these early experiences in “gardening” soured me to the whole idea of attempting a garden whatsoever for many years. After I re-acquainted myself with what it was truly about, I decided that I wanted to get my kids involved – but in a way that would make them appreciate nature and what she has to offer.

I put on my thinking hat (a.k.a. did a search on the Internet) and tried out a few ideas. These 5 were the ones that my kids definitely liked best:

1. Create a Bug Collection

The added benefit of having a live-bug collection is that it keeps the kids from asking you for a puppy for a while. In the spring time, we would create home-made aquariums out of glass bottles and poke holes in the lid, and then go looking for moths, snails, bees – even worms, if we filled our jars up with soil. I would have the kids look for the type of plants in our garden that those bugs enjoy, have them place it in the jars, and we would keep the bugs in the jar until dusk. They were able to enjoy their “pet bug” for a day, and could look forward to enjoying another the next morning.

2. The Kid Garden

Having children be interactive with anything is the way to go if you want them to have vested interest in something. I had my own separate flower and vegetable gardens, and I reserved some soil space for my kids to grow whatever it was they wanted to grow – roses, carrots, daisies, lettuce – whatever it was, we grew it – or at least attempted to.

3. The Family who Composts Together…

Composting is an important, year-long element to gardening. Having your kids actively composting (depositing their fruit and vegetable leftovers in the compost, for example) gets them involved in the process.

NOTE: Along with the compost, you can encourage your kids to build a “worm farm” to help compost materials.

4. Floral Arrangements

Rather than you make the floral arrangements with your flowers, have the children organize it. They’ll feel proud every time they sit at the kitchen table and enjoy it.

5. That’s so Tubular!

One thing that my children enjoyed during the colder months was watching plants grow inside. If it wasn’t our herb collection, it was definitely watching potatoes and carrots grow. I took a large ice cream tub, soil, and a potato and stuck it on the kitchen ledge for the children to watch develop. They loved seeing the leaves and flowers, and just observing how many roots that potato grew!

NOTE: I recommend growing tube veggies in a clear container (such as an old aquarium) so the children can actually see the roots as they grow, rather than only seeing them after you pick the vegetable or flower.

I hope that this article goes a long way in allowing your children to appreciate the beauty of their very own backyard!

photo by Katarzyna Lipińska