There’s no better way to get your kids involved in the garden than by giving them their own garden bed to plant in.

Not only can it get them motivated to participate in gardening with you, but it can teach them productive garden skills in a real-life context and boost their health during full body play.

Here we discuss benefits to children, garden bed ideas, easy plants, and basic garden chores for young children.

Let’s Dive In..

Benefits of Children in the Garden

Children can greatly benefit form gardening, just like adults.

One study showed that the use of gardens in their curriculum increased their knowledge of water, plant anatomy, and a real-life context the impact of a vegetable garden gives across all ages (source here).

Another article explains that children playing or helping in the garden activate their entire body through their motor skills and senses, are allowed to learn in a natural rhythm of play while gaining patience, responsibility, and knowledge about healthy lifestyles (source here)

One last article even stated children with disabilities showed improvement with verbal skills, better participation, while forming more positive relationships with adults. (source here)

This is not an exhaustive list of benefits for children but some of the top reoccurring benefits seen across the board.

Even by simple observation, moms and dads anywhere can agree that their kids feel better after they have had time outdoors.

Assigning a garden patch that is exclusively taken care of by your child can really accelerate some of these benefits, also.

Garden Bed Ideas

If your child is interested in taking on gardening all by themselves, it’s best to give your child a small area to fill and take care of first.

Especially if they are young or if your family is new to gardening.

Large Pots. Probably the easiest to do. Giving one to two large pots or even 5-gallon buckets can be done anywhere, even if you don’t have land. You can easily work together learning how to fill the pot and best plants to grow in them.

Small, raised garden bed. Raised garden bed kits come in all shapes and sizes. Some are even suitable for your deck. This will give them a slightly bigger area to play and experiment with.

Simply, tilling in a new spot in the grass for them. Probably the best method because you can really dive into gardening skills with this. It doesn’t have to be big, but digging into the ground where all the worms and other insects reside is beneficial. You can expand on your plant choices when planting right in the ground also, so if you child chooses a large plant like a pumpkin it can have the appropriate room to grow.

Easy Vegetables for Kids to Grow

These are all large seeds that are easy to clean up if spills happen and for tiny fingers to handle.

• Peas
• Pumpkin or Squash
• Watermelon
• Beans
• Corn
• Nasturtiums
• Sunflowers
• Cucumbers

Plant starts to look for include

• Tomatoes, especially determinate or cherry ones
• Sweet Peppers

These usually have the least problems with pest and diseases, although no garden is immune to them.

Plant starts may be ideal since it can give the child a great visual and a more immediate start.

Remember the goal is to learn and explore and this list is suggestive. So, letting your child choose whatever they want can work as well.

Easy Garden Chores for Children

The point of garden chores is to teach good garden husbandry.

No matter your age, a well taken care of garden is one that is looked after.

That said garden chores don’t have to be a burden! It’s a great way to initiate getting the children into the garden itself.

Watering. The most important chore and can easily be done with a hose or watering can, even for toddlers. You can easily explore different ways to water a garden including sprinklers.

Weeding. To be taken with caution since some gardens are plague with poison ivy and such. But weeding is also a great aspect of garden maintenance and can give the child a great weekly chore to accomplish.

Harvesting. The best part! Teaching your toddler when it’s appropriate to harvest (for example, picking only red tomatoes) may take a few seasons but school aged children catch on quick. Once your child knows when it’s appropriate to harvest the vegetable or flower you can easily delegate this task to them. This is where self-accomplishment is felt the most and should be celebrated!

Some chores for older children:

Composting. Introducing them to how plants die back, decompose, to then re-feed future generations of plants is powerful for learning in a real-life timeline.

Pruning. This can be done with simple scissors on soft plants to get them started. Pruning is great garden husbandry. It takes a few seasons to really learn the ropes depending on what you’re growing but a skill that will last them a lifetime.

Weed Whipping or Lawn Mowing. That is if you don’t have a mulched pathway around your beds. Taken to your own discretion, of course.

No matter the age or skill level, just one chore can keep their involvement going the entire growing season.

That’s It!

Gardening is greatly beneficial to a child and is encouraged no matter what age.

There are plenty of ways to get started with attainable goals in a garden bed that are age appropriate.

Enjoy!

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Happy Gardening!

-Chelsea, The Cottage Vegetable

Use coupon code COTTAGEVEG10 for 10% off your purchase site wide at OLLE GARDENS

12-IN 1 Metal Raised bed in Barn Red, featured in my own personal garden

The Cottage Vegetable

Gardening & Preserving for a Practical Kitchen

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