Gardening with Children

Suggestions for starting a garden with children.

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Gardening with children is a fabulous two-way street: they’re receiving how-to instruction and inspiration, and you get to see your garden—indeed, the world at large—through a child’s wondering eyes. Here are some quick tips on keeping the whole family happy in the garden. (Enjoying children in the garden doesn’t require kids of your own—I borrow my neighbor’s kids every year!)

When starting plants from seed, stick with tasty, quick-germinating vegetables and gratifying annuals. Corn, peas, beans and pumpkins all make great starter plants. Choose larger-seeded plants like sunflowers and melons that will be easier for tiny fingers to handle.

Get your child some pint-size gardening tools—not the toy variety, which break easily in our soil. We have an excellent selection of brightly colored well-made child-size gardening tools from Europe. Getting the proper tools prevents a lot of frustration—think about trying to dig a hole or make a furrow with a tool three times your size!!

Chemical pesticides should be avoided. Remember the joy of picking bright sun-warmed strawberries and plopping them into your mouth? Forcing the child gardener to delay enjoying the fruits of her labor by running inside and scrubbing off pesticides takes more willpower than I possess.

Beneficial insects are a blast! Nothing seems to light up a child’s eyes as much as releasing a bag of ladybugs or watching a praying mantis cocoon hatch—and it will help keep aphids in check. Then, if children are wilting from work, send them on a quick ladybug hunt to re-energize them!

If you have the space, give the child his own plot. It should be a manageable size, and they should have the ultimate say in what gets planted. A 3×3 foot square in the corner of your yard may be too small for your visions but will be just the right size and workload for a small person. Keeping the plot small lets the child work it easily without stepping into the beds (child feet aren’t always as careful as adult feet—luckily they’re also lighter and less destructive).

The great thing about gardening is that it quickly provides learning opportunities. While you might be tempted to fix potential problems as they’re happening, the child will enjoy her experience more if you let those mistakes happen and guide her through preventing them in the future. Rather than fixing crooked rows, ask pointed questions about the amount of space the seeds will need to grow.

Remember that this is supposed to be FUN! Learn from them as much as they learn from you and don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers. Sometimes “fun” is a dab of pollen on the nose.