Getting Kids Involved in the Garden

For many of us, the garden is an escape; an escape from chaos, from life indoors, and sometimes it provides a quiet escape from our loud, rambunctious, dearly loved children.

While I find that going to the garden gives me a chance to decompress and soak up some quiet time, it also provides me the opportunity to bond with my children and teach them valuable skills that are quickly disappearing from our society

The big question though, is how do we get them involved?  How do we compete with addictive screens or sports teams filled with peers?  How do we show them the joy and value in growing their own food?

Here are a few things that have worked in our household.

1.  Give them some control

Who doesn’t want to have things their own way?! Giving children a say-so in what is grown is a perfect way to get them to buy-in to the garden.  One way we do this is by allowing our kids to pick out some plants just for them.  When the coveted seed catalogs start arriving, we sit down and go through them, looking at pictures and reading descriptions of the fruit.  We even circle our “wants”, just like the good ‘ole days when the JCPenney Christmas catalog came in the mail!  Once seeds are ordered and ready to be planted, we even label them differently. We don’t have “Sugar Cherry Tomatoes”, we have “Amelia’s Tomatoes.” This allows our daughter to take ownership of her tomatoes and find joy as she nurtures it and watches it grow.

  1. Make it fun

One of the most fun garden tasks we have ever taken on as a family is digging up potatoes.  We were able to grow a small, experimental mound of potatoes a few years ago.  When the vines died back and it was time to dig potatoes, my kids were ready for their treasure hunt.  They quickly sifted through the dirt and would exclaim “I FOUND ONE!” each time they pulled out a potato.  Not only was hunting potatoes a fun experience, the fun-factor made the task go quite quickly. Plus, getting dirty, according to my kids, is always a fun time.

  1. Allow them to help meal prep

I have found that allowing my kids to help in the kitchen makes them more prone to try the foods we grow.  When we first grew radishes, it was a food my children had never tried.  Together, we looked at how to best prepare our variety of radishes.  Once we decided how to fix them, my children got their stools, knives, and began chopping.  Remember those “Amelia Tomatoes” I mentioned earlier?  My daughter now knows how to cut them and add the proper seasonings for a healthy, yummy snack.  Both my children take great pride in being able to do adult type tasks at such a young age.

Yes, the garden is a place of refuge from our busy lives.  However, it also provides us with opportunity to teach our children valuable skills and principles.  Growing food provides lessons in delayed gratification, patience, problem solving, responsibility, and nutrition. These cannot be found in a screen or on a field.  Unless that field has a garden.

Written by: Kelsey Gable