Gardening With The Kids
Published: 17/06/2019
If youre eager to get the kids outdoors enjoying the garden, take a look atourtop tips for turning your little ones into the gardeners of tomorrow. Gardening is a great activity, whatever the age of your child. As well as the obvious physical benefits to gardening and getting them outside and exercising, gardening teaches kids about the world they live in and enables them tosee how their efforts and actions have a positive effect on their environment.
Pick something simple to start with and watch them get hooked as their plants start to grow!
Here are some great gardening ideas to get you started:
1. Jack and the Giant Beanstalk
Encourage the kids togrow their own giant beanstalk withmagic beans. Runner beans are really easy to grow into tall climbing plants. And they taste really good too! You can grow any type of veg. Growing vegetables is a great way to teach kids about where their food comes from, and its perfect for promoting a healthy lifestyle and encouraging them to eat healthy! Shop our full range offruit and vegetable seeds, and get your kids growing their own.
2. Tasty strawberries
Strawberries are a favourite for many and they taste even better home grown! Encourage the little ones to grow their own seeds to success with ourstrawberry seeds.
3. Attract wildlife
Creating a garden that attracts and protects wildlife teaches kids about the circle of life, the world they live in and how their actions can affect others. OurHow to Build Your Own Bug Hotel bloggives you a step-by-step guide in creating a bug hotel to help attract insects to your garden.
4. Wildlife watching
Get a bird spotting book and let them get to know which birds are in your garden. Make it even more fun by picking up a small pair of binoculars to really get them interested in wildlife watching.
5. Sunflower competition
See who can grow the tallestsunflower. Plant them side by side and watch them sprout in just a week! After 8 weeks, measure the height of each sunflower and whoever grew the tallest will be declared the winner!
6. Grow a cresshead
Get the kids making a fun cress head using an empty half-cut egg shell, cotton wool and some kitchen towel. Decorate the egg shell with a friendly face, pop a small amount ofdamp kitchen towel into the bottom of the egg shell, followed by some damp cotton wool. Sprinkle a fewcress seedsover the topand shoots will start to appear within a week.
7. Look after the bees
We know how important bees are for our gardens and the planet in general, so get kids involved in helping to save them by making a bee hotel. Simply put straw into empty pipes or fill aterracotta plant potwith pine cones.
8. Grow your own herbs
Growingherbsis an easy gardening idea to encourage kids initial interest in growing their own plants. It requires minimal effort and can be done indoors. They can watch their efforts grow any time of the day too!
Gardening is all about experimenting. Put kids in old clothes, relax and let them get muddy!