Hello!
Most people love gardening and watching plants grow. Children will find gardening rewarding and fun. My grand kids really enjoyed watching everything grow in our garden last year. Gardening with kids can create a bonding experience and show them how to grow their own food and flowers.
The picture below is 3 out of 5 of my grand kids at the Simongetti North!
When planning the garden with kids, make sure you are using plants that are safe for them to handle. Gardening with kids, is a great way to introduce how nature works. Kids love to play in dirt anyway, here you can show them how to prepare the dirt, plant the seeds, water and watch them grow. Teaching kids to garden is something they will use for a lifetime. Let them dig in the dirt and plant seeds!
Gardens for Kids
There are several kinds of gardens you can do with kids that can be big or small. You can let them have their own small vegetable or flower garden, they can help with the big family garden. Kids also like Fairy gardens and sensory gardens. 
Fairy Gardens – Fairy gardens are like dollhouse gardens, they are small and cute. I am going to set up some fairy gardens this year at the Simongetti North. I already have different fairy garden miniatures and plenty of room on our 20 acres to randomly add them. The grand kids will love the little whimsical fairy gardens.
Having the kids help you create the fairy gardens will be fun for them as well. You can create fairy gardens in a container, large or small. Create in different areas on your property, your balcony or porch, many ways and places to create fairy gardens. You can incorporate little solar fairy lights, add a fairy door to a tree and make a walk way up to it. You can purchase little fairy items to enhance the looks and just have fun and use your imagination.
Sensory Gardens – these are usually at preschools, and educational centers. A sensory garden is a garden that is self-contained and to allow kids or even adults to experience and stimulate your senses. A sensory garden can be both educations and recreational.
To have a sensory garden you will want different plants with smells, taste, sound and fun items in the garden with different shapes, sizes and colors. The possibilities are endless. Do some research to find the plants for all the senses and also make sure you consider your hardiness zone.
Vegetable & Flower Gardens – It’s kind of nice to let kids have their own garden that they can attend to. It can be a mix of flowers and vegetables. It helps them with a sense of responsibility to make sure their plants do well and to see the plants grow.
There are some flowers and vegetables that are kid friendly and are fun to watch grow. Kids who are encouraged to grow their own food are more willing to eat them. It is best to plant fast growing plants, the fast growing vegetables would be beans, pumpkins, carrots, lettuce and cucumbers. The easy fruits would be blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries.
Fun Gardening Ideas for Kids
Tee Pee – How fun for the kids to have live growing tee pee. You can use 6 to 9 bamboo poles, scrap lumber (2 x 2) or tree branches for the tee pee frame.
Sink the polls 6′ to 8′ into the ground, use twine to tie the top, wrap around each pole with twine and gradually adding the twine down the poles evenly for the vines to latch on to and grow up the tee pee. Make sure the pole for the door are wide enough, then plant the seeds around each pole.
Tunnel – Creating tunnels using vine plants are also fun. You would want some property to do this or a large garden. Creating a tunnel frame structure using again bamboo poles, 2 x 2 scrap wood or tree branches. Set up the frame on how you wan the tunnel.
Use twine to add evenly top to bottom for the vine plants to grab when growing. You can use beans, peas, little pumpkins or small squash to grow or you could grow flowers that are climbers like Morning Glories or Moon Flowers. These can also be used for the Tee Pee as well.
Sunflower Fort – A sunflower fort could be an option for the older kids where the tee pee might be a little small for them. Sunflowers grow really tall. You can grow them in a circle or rectangle with a gap for the door.
Once the sunflowers have grown, kids can add beans, peas, morning glories for additional crop and to help fill in the sunflower fort. It will also protect you from the sun and create a nice shade spot to hang out.
Garden Spot – Creating a small garden space for your children or grand children will be something fun for them to do. you can help them pick the flowers and vegetables that are fast growing. Let them pull the weeds and water the plants. When it’s time to let them harvest the vegetables.
Then you can encourage them to try the vegetables they grew. You can also add some fun things in their garden that are fun for kids. Having flowers in their garden you can have them grow cut flowers for them to pick flowers when they want. Kids love to pick flowers for their mom and grandma.
Benefits of Teaching Kids to Garden
Gardening has many benefits for children. One of the main benefits is growth and development. Learning to garden can slow the kids down from the busyness of everything going on in this world. Part of the fun of starting a garden is the planning, design and then implementing the garden. Let the kids be creative on how they want their garden to look, if you have a large enough space or if you are doing a small container garden.
Gardening also teaches the child responsibility. Taking care of a garden takes time, light, food and water. Making sure the plants have what they need will teach the kids how the plants will grow. Letting the kids have a garden is a relatively inexpensive source of entertainment.
Happy Planting!
As you can see gardening can be fun for the entire family. There are many different types of gardens you can do. I am very excited for spring to get here so I can start prepping the different areas to get ready for gardening. I think I will make a small grand kids garden too for them to work on when they visit.
Cheers!
Chris
Do you garden with your children or grandchildren?
Please leave a comment below and tell us how you garden with your kids or grand kids!
Amazon has some really cool gardening tools and toys for kids! If you are interested just click on the picture to take you to in Amazon.
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My mom is going to love me for sending this to her. She has my two little siblings who are five years old and nine years old and they need some activity like this. Granted right now it’s winter, but they will definitely be taking advantage of this in the summer. I really appreciate all the information that you have provided on this article. My little siblings will have fun gardening around
I had fun writing this post. Kids and gardening can be so much fun for all. The options of incorporating a garden and play area for kids is fun too! Planting seeds that grow fast to see the fruits of their labor is a very satisfying thing for kids!
Hello Chris, I enjoyed so much reading your article. Your article is very informative and gives me great help on how to have some wonderful activities in gardening with my daughter. She is three years old and likes very much to help with the flower that I grow on my balcony. Your idea about fairy and the sensory garden is beautiful and I will try to realise with my daughter.
Best wishes
Alketa
Thank you for your comments. Kids love to garden and the ideas in the post make it even more fun for them. Enjoy!
Hello Chris
I recently moved to a new place that my kids love so much. It does not have a single tree and we are looking into making the place look beautiful for ourselves. I specifically chose the place because I am the kind of person that loves to do it myself. I also love gardening and often buy related books and watch related programs on television. As a result my kids have grown to love gardening too and cant wait to make the place homely.
I think I will let them have their own little vegetable garden and also allow them to help with the big family one. I have learnt a lot today about Fairy gardens, vegetable gardens and Sensory gardens. I also think my kids would love to have a sensory garden. Thank you once more for the fun gardening ideas for kids.
Your post has been so helpful. I cannot wait to have fun gardening with my kids
Thank you for your post! Your kids will love it!
Hi Chris – This is such a wonderful post full of great ideas for easy gardening with children! I especially loved the suggestion of building a fairy garden – this is the first time that I heard that something like that existed. Is it possible to share some tips on how to build it? I would love to build one but I don’t know where to start. Thanks in advance.
Hi Caro,
I love fairy gardens, my grandkids love them too. Check out Amazon Fairy Garden set, and these accessories. You can add on to them. There is other options too but thought I would throw in a couple links just to take a look. There is so many ideas. Thank you for your comments and stop back for more gardening tips.
I wonder after getting your kids to help plant vegetable plants if it is easier to get them to eat them after they grow. We have been talking about planting some edibles in a few pots and keep them on our patio. Our house is raised and keeping a garden in the small yard is not an option due to our 2 four legged children using all the space available. I like the decorative ways you found to show off these plants and could see something on our patio in the near future. Thanks!
Hi Rich,
Thank you for your comment. I was able to get my grand kids to try stuff from the garden. It might work, it’s worth a try. Container gardening is very popular.
This idea is very interesting and creative, I love the garden for kids that is very creative and it give the kids the knowledge of how things grow and the different benefits of growing things, understanding the seed, planting and watch it grow, or buy plants and watch it grow through different stages of growth, I love this, there is so many way it can take roots? I love gardening it is so much fun
Hi Dorothy,
I love gardening with my granddaughter and my grandson’s like it too. Thank you for your comments and please share with friends!
My wife and I love to garden. For the past year, we have been gardening in our own yard because of COVID. Your article appeared at just the right time because we are now able to visit our grandchildren. We have been looking for things to do with them that will keep us together as opposed to together but separate like the movies or watching TV. Your ideas for gardening are just great. We have a 5 year old granddaughter who would love to put together a fairy garden. Our grandsons would enjoy the teepee or tunnel. Thanks so much for these ideas.
Thank you for your comments! Enjoy gardening with your grand kids! I plan on doing a teepee this year too!
Aww, thaaank you!
You have given me the idea to make a herb basket! I would like to start this project now in the spring. It should be looking lovely by Christmas. And it’s exciting for me and it will be for my little girl too! I’m going to go and look for that old basket, I think I saw a week ago.
Thank you for your comments! Enjoy gardening with your little girl!