If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Children enjoy planting and watching things grow. By giving them a little garden space or a planter to grow vegetables and flowers in you can teach them about nature and also spend time with them.

photo credit: davidsilver

If you have a larger garden by encouraging them to grow their own plants you will encourage a new gardener and be able to keep an eye on them.

My nephew always had a corner of the garden. They grew a few plants and also had a garden complete with trucks, tractors and plastic animals. It was the most unique spot in the garden but they enjoyed it and a few crops managed to grow. They also took home a few plants to grow and enjoyed showing them off to the neighbors.

Some of the best plants for children to grow are:

Beans. They are easy to grow and fun to watch. The pole beans will fascinate them.

Pumpkins. Watching a small seed turn into their Halloween pumpkin is fun and seeing it start out green and turn orange will amaze them. Plant a few plants just in case a pumpkin doesn’t do well start out green and turn orange as they ripen.

Summer squash or cucumbers are fun to watch and produce vegetable quickly.

photo credit: BaylorBear78 – off for a while – hope to be back s

Lettuce grows fast and they will feel they are doing well in the garden when there is a crop to harvest. They may also learn to like salad!

Three Sisters Garden – Grow a traditional Native American style garden with corn, squash and beans. Check out this link for a three sisters article: Three Sisters Garden – Historical Theme Garden

Flowers. A few fun flowers for children are marigolds, morning glories, daisies, and sunflowers. They grow well and have nice color.

There are many more vegetables and flowers that are good for children to grow. The list above is just a starting point.

Gardening should be fun. By mixing some work with learning you can teach your child working with plants is rewarding.

Technorati Tags: children and gardening, children gardening, country living

Why would you want to interest your child in gardening?

photo credit: elemenous

Because children learn about plants, caring for plants and responsibility when they garden. They also have fun and it’s time you can share together as a family. They also get a feeling of achievement when their plants do well.

You can interest your child in gardening by letting them grow their favorite plants and vegetable.

You can also take them to the store and let them pick out some seed and their own children’s gardening tools, made the right size for children.

Tools that would benefit a child would be a hoe, rake, hand shovel and bucket. You might also consider gloves and a hat.

Seeds that most children enjoy planting are beans, pumpkins, lettuce, corn, vining plants and cucumbers.

They also like tomatoes but that a vegetable that should be purchased as a plant. I also like to see them plant a few flowers, usually bought as plants. Children enjoy seeing their seeds sprout and grow. They also enjoy showing them off to friends and family.

I also put a place in the garden where they can just play. Whether its with a pail and shovel or cars I find this gives them play time along with time they work with their vegetables and flowers.

The most important thing is that the child learns about plants and has fun.

photo credit: michaeln3

This experience usually follows them into adulthood and you will see another gardener or at least a person who values the environment.

Technorati Tags: children gardening, garden tips