Gardening
with Kids:
Growing Memories
I’ll never forget
BY KERRIE MCLOUGHLIN
10 Washington FAMILY APRIL 2022
the first time I picked a beautiful, ripe, red
tomato that I helped grow. I had watered and weeded around the plant
with love, and I was so proud of that tomato. Since I wasn’t interested
in gardening when I was a kid, this memorable gardening experience
happened the summer I turned 40.

This experience made me determined to share the joy of gardening
with my kids. I’m already learning that gardening alongside your kids
provides valuable opportunities for them to learn, get some exercise
and fresh air and spend time connecting with you. Learn my tips and
ideas for gardening success, as well as a few reasons why gardening is
one cool hobby.




BACKGROUND: NASTCO/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS; TOMATO: TIM UR/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS; BOOTS: THOMAS-SOELLNER/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS
GREEN IS IN RIGHT NOW
There’s nothing greener than growing your
own food. Composting is another fun, green
aspect of gardening because kids get to toss
eggshells, coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable
shavings and rinds into the compost bin. You
can make the entire garden a compost pile in
the off season, and if you like, you can leave a
section for composting throughout the year.

APPROPRIATE TOOLS
Make sure you have kid-size tools available
for your budding gardeners to keep them
interested. The website For Small Hands
(forsmallhands.com) offers several child-
size gardening tools such as gloves, shovels,
watering cans, kneeling pads, small buckets
for weeds, small aprons and totes for
tools and more.

RESPONSIBILITY Consider planting most of the plot as a family
garden. Save one section for your child’s
garden and make your child responsible for it.

If your kid doesn’t fall in love with gardening,
make the watering of and weed pulling in the
garden chores that can earn an allowance. Be
sure to relax your standards. Who cares if the
rows are not planted perfectly?
DECORATE PLANT MARKERS
WITH YOUR KIDS
Make stepping stones using a kit. We use
lattice screen that my husband cut to make a
short fence to keep animals out of the garden,
and the kids can paint it themselves. These
projects are ways to help your children make
the garden their own.

GET THE KIDS INVOLVED
Take them along to pick out seeds at the
garden store or spend an afternoon looking at
a seed catalog before making final decisions on
what to plant. Their faces will light up when
INSECTS Which bugs are bad (Japanese beetles), and they get to pick green beans for dinner or grab
which are beneficial? Which plants attract some mint for their lemonade. Soft lamb’s
butterflies (wild plants)? Buy some ladybugs, ear, fragrant lavender and basil make a great
let them loose and find out how long they addition to a fruit and vegetable garden. T
stay to eat up aphids. Visit kidsgardening.org,
search for information about insects and have
Visit our website for a delicious
fun reading about insects and the work they do.

pizza sauce recipe you can prepare with your
homegrown vegetables.

NO SPACE?
Try the square-foot gardening method (visit
squarefootgardening.org), a great system for
beginners that saves time, work, water and
money. You can start as small as a 1-foot-by-1-
foot plot of land and grow from there by adding
more feet as you are ready. It’s on a raised-bed
system, so weeds are kept to a minimum. You “Green Thumbs: A Kid’s Activity Guide
can bring in your small garden if a frost is on to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening”
the horizon. Or think up by growing pole beans by Laurie Carlson (Chicago Review
or gourds so you can plant more items below. Press, 1995)
Grow herbs in a pot inside. If you don’t have
a backyard, community gardens are all the “Grow Your Own Pizza: Gardening Plans
rage these days. Visit communitygarden.org to and Recipes for Kids” by Constance
locate one near you or learn how to start one. Hardesty and Jeff McClung (Fulcrum
Publishing, 2000)
jam and much more). Sometimes you might
end up with so much ripe bounty that you need
to find people to share it with.

Gardening Resources
for Families
“The Ultimate Step-by-Step Kids’ First
Gardening Book: Fantastic Gardening
Ideas for 5- to 12-Year-Olds, from
Growing Fruit and Vegetables and
Having Fun with Flowers to Indoor and
Outdoor Nature Projects”
by Jenny Hendy
(Lorenz Books, 2010)
EDUCATION (AKA DON’T TELL THE
KIDS THEY’RE LEARNING STUFF)
How much will it cost to buy enough tomato
plants to fill half of our space? How many feet
by how many feet is our garden, and how many
different things can I plant in it? Could we
plant an ABC garden if we have room for 26
small plants?
NOURISHMENT Have a garden-to-table pizza party where the
toppings come from your garden. Learn how
to can your goodies at freshpreserving.com so
that you can save them for another day and give
some as holiday gifts. Can fruits and vegetables
as they are or doctor them up (salsa, pie filling,
WashingtonFAMILY.com 11