Gardening with kids is always an adventure and almost always a great way for kids and adults both to learn about gardening and nature. Is there anything better than a child discovering the seed she planted is now sprouting? Or perhaps the look of utter joy when they taste that first delicious strawberry of the season?
Gardening with kids can also test our patience at times. Though they mean well, it’s not unheard of to find that when they pulled all those weeds, the sunflowers came up, too. Of course, that’s really a lesson for us to slow down and remember that gardening with kids is supposed to be fun.
One thing it’s important for adults to understand is that gardening with kids, which seems like the most fun you can have in the backyard, isn’t all that fascinating to the average child with the attention span of a peanut. Or maybe like Anita B. Stone learned in The Little Girl With the Hose, it’s more fascinating than we realize.
Gerald Burke explores a similar question in Kids and Gardening. Will your kids remember gardening with you fondly or is that just another activity gone with the wind of technology?
Beware, though! Not all stories of gardening with kids are just about sharing the love of gardening. Sometimes, the kids team up to trick us. Deborah Young’s story, Outsmarting Mother, is a perfect example of what happens when our kids put their brains together and teach parents a thing or two. But mom is smarter than they think.
When you’re gardening with kids, you might be planting more memories than vegetables. And that’s okay.
Feel free to stay a while and enjoy all the stories we have about gardening with kids, below. And be sure to check out our Gardening with Kids Collection while you’re here, which features a hand-picked selection of our favorite stories from this category.
Gardening with kids is stressful, but when I was a child, my mom used to trust me with all sorts of garden chores. I would take care of her tomatoes, her roses, and her zucchinis. I would weed and water and pick the ripe fruits and vegetables. When she wasn’t looking, I’d try to hand-pollinate […]
Imagine buying a home and finding out that someone planted you a surprise garden! I find many sweet stories of mini gardeners when I page through our library of GreenPrints issues, but as the mom of a little sunflower-lover, this one touches my heart a little extra. In this story, “Secret Sunflowers” by Mary Anglin-Coulter, […]
Whether it’s a grandmother’s or mother’s garden, the gardens we remember from childhood are almost always places we can return to in our minds to find a moment of peace or calm. If we’re lucky, we can even go there in person. In story after story as I’ve read through the GreenPrints archives, I see […]
If you grew up reading books like The Lord of the Rings or The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, you might understandably believe that if you want to find a magical secret garden, you need to head off to some forgotten realm or stumble upon an adventure. Can you imagine how magical a Hobbit garden […]
When my children were young, I was sure that they didn’t listen. Even a doe-eyed three year old attached at the hip who seems like they’re patiently listening to all your parental wisdom is probably just singing the lyrics to the latest Disney song in their head while you jabber on. Gardening with kids, which […]
As parents and grandparents of potential young gardeners, we have watched whimsical playtime in the backyard turn to bright staring faces behind blue tablets and screens. Eating out at a restaurant used to be a big deal that deserved full attention, but nowadays, you’re lucky to dine out and see a family with their faces […]
Family gardening time can also be a great way to occupy the younger ones in our midst with important, but engaging tasks that keep them busy. Usually, this is also fun time. It’s time we can spend together learning about nature, how our hard work and patience pays off, and how even when we do […]
Oh! The joys of family gardening. I realize that might sound a little sarcastic, but I’m being serious. I love gardening with my family. It’s gives us a chance to spend time together outdoors, with the sun overhead, warm soil at our feet, and the reward of delicious fruits, herbs, and vegetables nearly all year […]
I just loved reading today’s story, “Tiny Gardeners,” because it reminded me of my own daughter who is in kindergarten and attends a (mostly) outdoor Waldorf school. In the spring and fall, her teacher asks parents to bring in bulbs so that the children can plant them all around their play yard. Gardening with kids […]
Until my daughter began helping me in the garden, I never realized how much I would learn by gardening with children. I knew I would take her out to the garden, and I assumed she would watch me patiently and lovingly, helping pull weeds here and there or learning to tell the difference between daisies […]
