Gardening with kids can be both delightful and a wonderful way of educating children early in life about nature’s beauties. Not only will kids planting find this a wonderful activity, but kid gardening will also be a big step towards creating a youth garden.
Why Kid Gardening?
Why should you involve your kids with gardening in the first place? Kids enjoy playing with mud, playfully using a hose and watching things grow so gardening for kids can be a lot of fun. Further, if they are made a part of the gardening process they will surely enjoy it even more. As much as they should be introduced to kids planting, they should also be consulted about the design of the youth garden as they can come up with colorful and innovative ideas. As you help in gardening for kids, watch their inquisitive minds come up with questions that can only make them better future gardeners.
Kid Gardening: Preparing The Soil, Watering & Weeding
Start with the basics when gardening with kids. When gardening for kids teach them the importance of preparing the soil well to ensure a healthy plant in a youth garden. This entails looking into the pH of the soil, checking the weather that can help grow the right plant and adding the right fertilizers. Loamy soil is best to work with as it should ideally not be too clayey or sandy in a youth garden. While watering a plant in a youth garden is an enjoyable activity for all ages, while gardening with kids, it is also very important to teach them about the environment and the importance of conserving water while gardening. In addition, the importance of weeding should be emphasized as well when with gardening with kids.
What To Grow In Kids' Gardens
When gardening with kids, it is advisable to start with food items that can be grown easily and in a short span of time. For kids gardens, growing watercress, radishes and lettuce are excellent choices as they will be the quickest to grow in 6-8 weeks. Bean shoots may also be grown quickly in a youth garden and eaten in a salad or sandwich.
- First soak the seeds overnight.
- Next take a wide mouthed jar and place the drained seeds in them, covering the top with a wire mesh through which water and air can pass.
- Water regularly, always draining away the excess and enjoy the bean sprouts in a few days.
What To Remember While Maintaining Kids Gardens
When gardening with kids, there are certain things to keep in mind which will make kids planting their own youth garden a more enjoyable process for them and hopefully make them lifelong gardeners!
- Gardening tools kids will enjoy using will increase interest in kid gardening so when gardening with kids, choose your tools well.
- Subscribe to Kids Garden News for monthly e-mail alerts on gardening conferences, resources and more.
- Exchange ideas with fellow gardeners who are also gardening with kids to increase the variety of your youth garden and learn better kids planting methods.
- Though mistakes may be made while gardening for kids, do not hesitate to learn from them to create a better youth garden.
- From gardening with kids one can easily move on to garden crafts such as painted flower pots to garden plant markers or even innovative garden design such as a fairy garden.
One of the easiest ways to make your kids eat those greens is to make them grow them so gardening with kids might be a great idea to get them into healthy eating habits as well! They will no longer turn up their noses at what they have been cultivating for weeks in their youth garden. Gardening with kids will therefore not only promote healthy eating but will also providing the kid gardening with extensive practical knowledge on the subject.
References:
- Kids Gardening and Gardening For Kids - Kiddie Gardens
- Why Youth Gardens - Kids Gardening
