Messing Around in the Dirt -- Gardening with Children

The joys of gardening with children, and ways to get them interested.

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  • Topic: Gardening with Children
  • Author: Cindy Bellinger
  • Keywords: children, seeds, dirt, soil, play, Messing Around in the Dirt--Gardening with Children, Messing Around in the Dirt--Gardening with Children, Other, gardens
  • Date: May 2003

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I will never forget the time I asked a neighbor to help me plant a garden. I’d never seen such eagerness. Not many people jump at the chance to work, but Jason was three years old and could hardly wait. “Let’s go,” I remember him saying. It was his latest phrase and he knew just when to say it.

I’d already gotten the ground prepared so all we had to do was plant the seeds. For the next few days he kept coming over and ask, “Have they sprouted?” Of course the radishes came up first. And the excitement this generated brought this little guy over every day all summer long.

No matter what age, most children just take naturally to digging in the dirt so getting them to garden is the next logical step. But as we all know gardening is not just about watching plants grow. In any garden there are also worms and bugs to explore. And watering becomes a total fascination.

Planting vegetables is a good choice for children. The seeds germinate quickly, and radishes, zucchini, pumpkins, carrots, lettuce, peas, beans and sunflowers prove particularly easy to grow. Transplanting cherry tomato plants is another idea.

“It’ll be fun to see what happens at harvest time,” said Jason’s mother. “I have a tough time getting him to eat vegetables.” As it turned out, Jason was more than willing to eat what he’d grown. That direct connection from earth to food had been made and he informed us he wanted to be a farmer when he grew up.

Besides experiencing the joy of watching seeds grow children who garden also learn the rhythms of nature, patience, acceptance of loss, responsibility, accomplishment and satisfaction. And no matter what age your gardening partner is tending a vegetable plot is a great way to teach botany, entomology, language (Latin as well as colloquialisms) history, recycling (composting) and math.

Though weeding may not hold as much interest for children as the planting does, the chores are a little more fun if children have rakes, hoes, spades, and gloves their own size to use.

Planting flowers is another way to get kids interested in gardens. Some easy to grow flowers include snapdragons, petunias, marigolds and daisies. Also, any of the perennials that attract butterflies and hummingbirds will certainly take the gardening experience to another level of interest.

Some kid gardening ideas—

  • For two or more kids, make a “pizza” garden by dividing a large circle into wedge-shaped sections. Each child can have his or her own section or different plants can be planted in each section.
  • Use a tripod support to train climbing plants such as sugar snap peas or beans to grow a live teepee.
  • Plant sunflowers in a circle or square, leaving an entry space, and tie the tops loosely together near the heads to make a sunflower hideout.
  • When a pumpkin is a few inches in diameter, let children write their initials on the pumpkin with a felt marking pen. Use a paring knife to scrape away the pumpkin skin over the initials. As the pumpkin grows, so will the initials.

Two useful books we carry in our Garden Center are:

1. “Kids Gardening—A Kid’s Guide to Messing Around in the Dirt” by Kevin Raftery and Kim Gilbert Raftery (this comes with a plastic trowel).

2. “Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots” by Sharon Lovejoy.

By cultivating their curiosity about growing things, you can help children develop a love of the natural world through gardening. They will also enjoy the special time they get to spend with you.

Unfortunately, I lost touch with Jason and his family after we all moved from the neighborhood, but I’ve often remembered the year we put in a garden. And I’d sure like to know if he grew up to be a farmer.