Gardening with children
Get Growing!
Gardening is a great way to get children outdoors and to develop an interest in nature and the environment. Growing and picking their own fruit and veg is a great way to encourage children to eat more of them. If you have the space in your garden, why not give them a small patch of their own to look after? Even if you only have a windowbox, you can still encourage children to grow and look after some herbs or salad crops.
Junior Groups Bulb Competition
As part of our Spring Bulb Show, we have a special bulb growing competition that is aimed at primary schools, community groups and youth groups. This competition is fun and light-hearted and the children all enjoy taking part.
If you would like your school or group to enter the 2024 competition, please contact springshow@rchs.co.uk.
Young Gardeners at The Caley
Here at The Caley, we are keen to encourage young gardeners to get involved. If your child would prefer to enter a competition working on their own, we have a junior section in our main Spring Bulb Show (6th & 7th April 2024). The only stipulations are that they should be under that age of 13 on the date of the show and that they should have grown the bulbs on their own. This is a great way to get your kids (or grandkids) involved in gardening. For many, it becomes a lifelong interest. For further details, see the ‘Spring Bulb Show’ page of the website or contact springshow@rchs.co.uk.
Gardening with Children
Below you will find a few practical activities that you can work on with the young person in your life. We change these activities regularly in keeping with the season so that you will always have something relevant to work on. The activities are easy to follow, fun to do and give a good introduction to growing plants, gardening, and other garden related skills. It is not necessary to have a large garden as many of the activities can be done in a variety of locations and plants can be grown in containers.
Many older children will be capable of working through the activities by themselves, but in the interests of safety and to achieve the best learning results, gardening as a family or a group is recommended, with direct mentoring and encouragement from a responsible adult.
Projects for you to do
April
April showers can be heavy and can come along unexpectedly between periods of warm sunshine; there may also be hail and thunder with the showers but as the sun reappears look out for a glorious rainbow. In the sunshine after a shower of rain watch for the ‘steam’ rising from the warm ground.
This is the type of spring weather that encourages plants to grow. The days are getting longer and warmer and the garden is now becoming a bustling, busy place. Every day you will find something needs to be done; preparing the ground for sowing or planting-out, weeding, potting-up, labelling and many ‘spring cleaning’ jobs. When you take a rest from all the garden tasks, spend a few quiet minutes looking and listening for birds and other wildlife that are also about their business at this busy time of the year; towards the end of the month you may hear the cuckoo or see the first swallow.
Make a bird table
Seed Sowing
Watching Plants Grow
Get involved or get further information!
