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.
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
July
This is generally the driest time of the year, and you may have to water some plants or they will not produce their best results and could die. Hanging baskets, containers and seed trays will definitely require watering – twice a day in very dry, hot weather! Don’t over-water and don’t waste time and effort watering a lawn as this encourages shallow root growth; only water garden plants that will benefit; vegetables and young flowering plants.
If you start watering plants, keep it going until they are established, or the rain comes; occasional watering only encourages shallow rooting, and your plants will suffer. Never over wet plants, particularly pot plants that are inside; soil/compost should be damp not wet. If you can, stand your plant pots in a bowl of water for a few minutes, this gives them a good drink.
The first vegetables should be ready to harvest in early July; salad lettuce, radishes, small beetroot and early potatoes and peas will bring fresh flavour from the garden to your plate; wonderful!
We are now into holiday time when you may have to leave the garden to its own devices while you are away. Place your pots and container in a shady spot out of direct sunlight and try to arrange for someone to water them regularly; a couple of times a week should be enough. Also, leave things as tidy as you can, because even in a week you will be astonished to find how quickly plants grow and get out of hand.
Do make time to enjoy the garden, sit quietly in a sunny corner and observe what is going on all around; the bees and butterflies will be busy inspecting the plants that you have grown; it will give you a good feeling of achievement.
Make a bird table
Drawing and Naming Flowers
Identifying Weeds
Get involved or get further information!
