A garden with children

Most things about gardening are appealing to children. Imagine getting to mess around with water and soil, munching on strawberries and following the magical journey from seed to harvest. The most exciting things are those that smell good, grow quickly, look fun or are edible. Big seeds are easier for children’s hands to handle, but even tiny seeds can arouse wonder. A perfect activity for your babysitter.

Good plants to grow with children

• Grows fast: radish, leafy greens, peas, beans, cucumber plants.
• Looks fun: kale pumpkin, kohlrabi, polkabeta, purple carrot, yellow radish.
• Fun to root out of the ground: potato, Jerusalem artichoke, onion.
• Good to eat off the vine: cucumber, tomato, sugar pea, corn, fruit and berries.
• For the competitive: pumpkin and sunflower – who can grow the biggest?

Tips for gardening with children

• My piece of the earth

Children love to have their own patch of land to look after and take control of. Indoors, it can be a few pots on a windowsill. Outdoors, pallet collars are made for growing with children. They provide a well-defined area with good working height. Pallet collars also reduce the risk of small, running feet accidentally stepping in the crops.

• Experiment with growing trays

It’s not only in pots that you can sow seeds. Try growing in different rinsed-out containers. Turn a long pan into a green sea of lettuce. Or put leca beads in the bottom of a colourful bucket and plant a cherry tomato. Toothpicks and cardboard can easily be used to make little signs telling you what’s growing.

• Vegetable gardening

It’s fun for children to explore the kitchen and see what they can grow there. Maybe there are avocado, apple or lemon seeds? Maybe it’s wheat grains and poppy seeds that end up in the soil? The tops of carrots and beetroot can be cut off with a margin of a few centimetres. Place them cut side down in a dish of water and harvest the edible leaves after a couple of days.

Other kitchen finds include peas, buckwheat and sunflower seeds that are soaked and placed in soil. Cress seeds grow quickly on damp kitchen paper and can be cut down directly on your breakfast sandwich. Mung beans, whole lentils and alfalfa grow so fast you can almost see them grow.

A small herb garden in the kitchen is another child-friendly project, and plants with strong or unusual flavours, such as chocolate mint, lemon basil, lavender or curry herb, are particularly fun.

• Fun with animals

Meeting animals is part of the growing experience. Make a water bowl for the hedgehog, grow colourful traction plants for butterflies and bees, make a birdhouse or an insect hotel. Take your magnifying glass to the compost and explore worms, caterpillars and grey owls.

• Edible flowers

Edible flowers are beautiful to decorate with and fun to savour. Some classics are marigold, cornflower, cucumber, pansy, sunflower, geranium and the bright purple flower of the chive. It is of course important that children learn that only certain flowers are edible. If you want to make your gardening safer for children, there is a helpful register of poisonous plants at giftinformation.se.

Play and learn for life

Farming is a sensory place for play and learning. Digging, watering and harvesting together creates space to talk about everything from cycles and chlorophyll to the nutritional needs of our bodies. The child gets to know plants and animals in their local environment. Growing together with children is also a good activity to recommend to their babysitter or other adults with whom they socialise.

Many research studies show that children who garden develop better concentration and motor skills, gain self-confidence and experience less stress. Farming also helps children feel and deepen their connection to nature. It is perhaps the most important gift we can give to the next generation.

Author: Johanna Damm

Fact-checked by Erik Hoekstra

Last updated 2022-10-14