Eight Tips to Get Your Kids to Enjoy Home Gardening
Posted on | December 15, 2011 | Comments Off
Eight Tips to Get Your Kids to Enjoy Home Gardening
Little kids love to try new things and get dirty. So what better time is there to introduce them to home gardening? If you make it fun for them, they will love gardening for the rest of their lives.
Here are some tips you might want to follow:
Give the kids a good selection of plants to choose from. If you are putting in flowers, they are going to prefer the bright, colorful ones, so include some in your landscaping selections. When offering choices for vegetables, the kids will be less likely to choose ones they don’t enjoy eating. Squash and melons take a large space, so you might not want to start with those. But radishes grow fast, and tomatoes, bush beans, lettuce, and beets all are very different in their growth and will intrigue youngsters. You want to choose hearty plants that will easily survive.
It is important that the kids help from the very beginning. Let them work the soil with their little toy tools, and help make the rows for planting seed. You can fix things as you move along behind them “checking out” their progress. If the seeds are too small for their little fingers, you plant and let them cover the seeds.
Label the rows with the seed packets, so the kids know what is coming up. And put a sign up stating it is “Dick and Jane’s Garden” to let them feel some responsibility and pride in it.
Have them use a watering can, instead of a hose. Explain how to water and that they have to be careful to not drown the plants.
Have the kids keep a journal of their garden’s progress. If they are not writing yet, they can draw pictures to show what is happening each week. You can take photos and let them paste them into their journal. If something goes wrong, note it and encourage them to remember for next year, so they can avoid that.
Make sure that the garden is in an area that is easy to reach that they will see when they are outside, but not in an area that they normally would use for playing with friends.
Be patient if the kids pick veggies or flowers too soon. They are curious. Let them pull a radish or pluck a green tomato…cut it open, taste it, and then wait and try again when they are bigger.
It is their garden and their plants. It can be messy and have weeds. When you start again next year, show them pictures and ask for their suggestions for improving their garden.
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