Gardening with Kids - Activity Ideas

Dig in the dirt with your kids this spring and introduce them to the smells, sounds
and textures of gardening.  Gardening can be a sensory experience for the entire family to explore, enjoy and learn from –what an opportunity right outside your doorstep! 
Here are some activities to get you started:

Edible Gardening
Create edible combinations by planting mixed lettuce bowls or containers full of sweet Sungold cherry tomatoes or strawberries with mint.  If you have a garden plot, try sunflowers, beets, fruit trees and blueberries.  These are all relatively easy to grow and offer instant edible rewards with a little patience.

In your plantings, include flowering companion plants (like marigolds and nasturtiums) and talk with your kids about how certain plants repel bad bugs and attract good ones. It’s best to plant edibles that kids can easily pick and eat – this shows the connection to where our food comes from.

A '3 Sisters' planting in a Native American garden is a perfect example of companion planting. Corn, beans and squash were all inter-planted once upon a time. The beans used the corn stalks for support and shaded the young ears from burning. The nitrogen fixed by the beans provided additional nutrition for the corn. The squash at the foot of the corn and beans received the benefit of shaded soil so their roots stayed cooler and moister and the beans repelled squash vine borers. The squash, being a somewhat prickly vine, kept varmints away from the ripening corn and beans!

Carnivorous plants
Carnivorous plants are cool for adults too! With sarracenias, try cutting open a leaf to see all of the decaying bugs in different stages of decay. Older kids can check out our Savage Garden book for more neat carnivorous plants. (available at all Sloat locations).

Plants that attract wildlife
Introduce your kids to hummingbirds, butterflies and ladybugs by planting Buddleia, fuchsia, marigolds, alyssum, scabiosa, viburnum and berberis.  Include birdhouses and a birdbath in your garden area and the birds will come!

Hold a ladybug release party
Kids can let the ladybugs crawl over their hands and arms as these beneficial insects are released into the garden. Releasing them is an opportunity to discuss good and bad bugs in the garden and how they both contribute to the ecosystem.

Create a sunflower house
Plant sunflowers around a sand box or designated area.  Use wood stakes to create the frame of the walls, leaving space for a door. Grow sunflowers all around the frame, and tie on stakes for support. 

Snail collecting
This activity focuses kids through all areas of the garden (they learn where snails like to hide such as on strap shaped leaves of Dietes, Agapanthus, Phormium, under ivy in shade), etc. (Sloat has great garden gloves for kids).

Gardening with kids during the rainy season: Bulbs, worms and bugs...oh my!
Rainy days are perfect for learning about gardening, measuring and even a little botany by observing the way plants grow.  We recommend bulb planting as a simple and fascinating project for ages 5 through 12, and worm composting and butterfly kits for older children. For younger children, work with larger seeds for better success: nasturtium, sunflowers and peas

Recipe for a rainy afternoon
Have amaryllis or paperwhite bulbs ready, along with a pot, soil, rocks and gloves. Plant the bulb in a pot, and then get a sheet of paper and write the following categories: Date, Size, Observation and Week. After the bulb has been planted for 5 days, have kids begin to observe the pot to watch for growth and then answer the following: How much does the bulb grow each day? What color is it? How tall is it? Does it have a scent?

If your child wonders about bugs and worms, they can watch worms squiggle and create compost in a worm composter. You can learn more about vermiculture (worm composting) at: www.wormdigest.org