Little Miss B from Gardening 4 Kids
Gardening with kids has so many benefits!
- It’s very educational and they can learn so many new skills.
- It’s a real bonding experience for the whole family.
- They are getting out into the fresh air and moving their bodies.
- Kids learn where food comes from and develop an appreciation of nature.
- It gives kids fabulous self-confidence and a sense of achievement.
- Kids will benefit from the effects of grounding when they are in touch with the earth.
Little Miss B and Caroline from Gardening 4 Kids
Organic Gardening Tips for the Whole Family
I have asked my good friend, author and horticulturist, Bek Mugridge for her top tips on organic gardening.
- Soil, soil, soil. This is such an important part to get right, even if you are on a budget for your garden one thing you do not want to scrimp on is your soil (or potting mixture in tubs).
- Organic matter. Think good compost, manure in the soil and mulch on top.
- Companion planting. Some plants are just friends in a garden and grow well together, benefit one another. Some plants work for you and deter pests and some attract good bugs and wildlife and are invaluable additions, think about your plant selections and what you are planting with what and where.
- Sunlight. One of the biggest mistakes I have seen from running nurseries is sun-loving veggies or flowering annuals that are really struggling in part shade, most veggies like at least 6 hours of strong sunlight, if they look leggy they may not be getting enough, check with your local nursery for recommendations to your specific area.
- Start a watering routine. It can be very stressful to plants, especially young seedlings and fast growing veggies to get a huge drink one day, nothing for a few days because you forgot and then drowned again or a daily drink but it is way too light and doesn’t get down to their deeper roots. Try and be consistent and water according to the plants needs. Some plants will need more than others and mulching will help reduce watering needs.
- Seasol is something I absolutely love and endorse the use of. It is an excellent source of nutrition for plants, safe to use on early all plants and it helps strengthen plants against drought, heat waves, insect attack, sea spray, damaging winds and frost and can help heal sick plants.
- Organic pest control. Hand removal/control, natural sprays, deterrents, multi-plantings, companion planting are all part of most organic gardens and so is balance. You want it to be it’s own mini healthy ecosystem and to be attracting good bugs and natural predators, not killing off everything and I think we can all live with a few holes in our kale if it means we have a lovely, healthy, balanced garden.
- Follow the seasons. Plant what is in season in your climate zone.
- Don’t overwhelm yourself, we are all busy, don’t start too much at once and then find it too hard to keep up with. Also put your gardens or pots where you see them all the time so you remember to water them, fertilise them, check for bugs and garden progress. Spend time out there, plant some pretty flowers in amongst them, put a table and chair out there for the kids, make it your earthy special place at your home.
- Give kids cool gardening tasks to keep it fun like caterpillar hunting, cabbage moth catching, watering with kid sized watering cans, measuring the heights of plants. Don’t forget to include great sensory plants in your garden too that kids can touch, smell and marvel at, not just edible ones.
- Get the kids really involved. Let them experience the true joy of gardening from the start of a seed to the harvest and cooking and you will ignite a passion in them forever.
Bek’s daughter, Lilly.
How to get kids interested in gardening!
The perfect person to help me with these tips is primary school environmental educator, gardening specialist and owner of Gardening 4 Kids, Caroline Roberts.
“Give your kids their own space and equipment in the garden and involve them any decision-making processes; all these actions will help increase your children’s sense of ownership and responsibility. With some guidance, help them pick what plants they would like plant in their garden. There are some really interesting and different varieties available that are appealing to kids. Rainbow chard, purple carrots and purple peas are all popular with kids and add colour to the garden. Finally, make it fun and show your children how enjoyable it is to be outside exploring the world around you.”
You can also do fun crafts and activities with children in the garden. There are a lot of people out there who want to get outside in the garden with their kids but just don’t have the confidence. I hope my tips will help with that. At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter what people plant, or even how it grows, it’s just about getting outside and making the effort. People having ‘green time’ with their kids is so important.
Giveaway
**** this giveaway has now closed… the winner was Tessa…. congratulations!!******
- Be a blog subscriber (add your email to the top right hand side)
- Be a Gardening 4 Kids Facebook liker. Go here.
- Head over the Gardening 4 Kids website and comment on this blog post, telling me what OTHER gardening product your kids might like to use.
Terms and conditions:
This giveaway runs from now until midnight on the 13th of October. The winner will be chosen using a random generator from those meeting the entry requirements. The winner will be emailed and announced on this blog post. Australian residents only. Good luck!
{sponsored post}
At this years Australian Garden Show, I chatted about all the wonderful benefits of getting the kids in the garden! My 2 were completely inspired by the show and raced home to spend the rest of the day planting and playing out the back : )
Oh my lord, thankyou for introducing me to this page and website as it’s just perfect for ideas for my budding gardener and Bek was THE perfect girl to tell us all about kids in the garden. Awesome blog! Oh and would love to win this set and may have to buy the Dirtgirl World scrapbook for Miss A! X
That site looks great! Thanks for another great post Sonia. My daughter would love the pot sticks – particularly the Fairy and Ladybug. 🙂
My little girl would love the design your own birdhouse or the plant press, or pretty much any of the gardening tools. She loves helping me in our veggie patch, even if it is just digging in the dirt or making mudpies
The pot sticks! How cute are they.
Oh my god where do I start, my daughter loves the garden, she would go crazy for the pot sticks, the make your own birdhouse, the windsock, twigz wheelbarrow just about all of it! She is only 2, but she helps Nanna pick flowers and herbs every time they are together & we pick Strawberries and weed our garden at home. So love this website! 🙂
The gardening 4 kids website is just what I’ve been looking for – thanks! I think the other thing my little boy would love is a wheelbarrow! You’ve given me some great ideas for Christmas presents!
How cute are they, Miss 6 and Mr 2 1/2 love to be outside and we are going to start a garden. They would love the Twigz Plant Labels to label the plants we are going to plant.
Confession: I used to watch my mum potter around in the garden for hours and my dad was the first person to introduce me to a vege garden..I thought it was very uncool and boring. How times change! Its been a year since we have started growing our own veges and I could not be happier.
Gardening really is the new Gangsta!
Great site! Thank u NNAM! I have just begun gardening and have 2 littlies and have a local friendship gardening group who i will share this with! Dirt, dirt and more dirt is what my little one loves to play with in the garden. I would love to one day have native ecosystems in our little spot and having more info/tips/workshops on growing native habitats would be awesome.
Thank you for blogging about this website. I was just talking about gift ideas for my little girl’s birthday with grandma the other day. They love gardening together and these products would be perfect! My little girl would love the pot sticks and the plant labels would help her identify what she had planted.
Thanks for another great post NNAM! My kids have a garden gnome that they move around the vegie garden to “look after” the plants, (he is currently keeping an eye on the strawberries) so I know that they would love a Seedling Colour Me Gnome Kit to “help out” too!
It’s a tough call, I think my Miss4 would love the flower press, Mr6 would greatly enjoy the wheel barrow, but they would both love soaking each other and the entire garden with the bottle top warterers!
So many wonderful products, it’s hard to decide what Miss 3 would love to use. I know she would love the Twigz Butterfly Net and the Flower Patch Kit. I’ve recently brought a few seedlings that she helps care for, they are doing wonderfully well.
My little man would love the twigs wheelbarrow, hehe. He’s already trying to push the lawnmower (while off) around the lawn 😀
We have just revived our garden patch(s) with the boys. We go out most mornings and afternoons and give the plants a water we then inspect to see how much they have grown and if there are any flowers or even fruit or vege coming up or ready to pick. The boys love it and actually eat more vege when they know they have grown it
So much to choose from! Love the Twigz butterfly net- my son would love this!
My boys have been asking for some bottle top waterers after using them at OOSH but the OOSH staff couldnt remember where they got them from, now I know, so I am defintiely keen to get some. Also, I think my boys would definitely love the goldfish windsock.
Love gardening with my baby (He’s nearly 2 – had him in the garden on the hose as soon as he could stand) Early spring as all the seeds shot up we called them ‘baby plants’ hoping to encourage gentle hands but it backfired! For a few weeks he’d run at the garden shouting ‘baby plants, my babies!’ pull them out of the ground as kiss them.
I agree totally with this post. My 3 year old loves to garden with me and gardening with my great grandmother is one of my fondest childhood memories, my gran used to always say ‘getting your hands in the dirt is good for the soul’ and that it is.
The butterfly net! We love gardening in our household but my boys are always wanting to re-pot our veggies and flowers!
My kids would love the Seedling Outdoor Explorer Kit!!
Thanks for this perfect timing we are trying to encourage our daughter to spend more time outside so this site is filled with such great ideas thankyou just what we needed
Twigz Plant Labels because we are just about to start planting out our herb garden & these would be great to know what the seedling are. We had the soil delivered this morning. It’s going to be a fun weekend.
I think my baby would love the Planteco Plant press – he’d be able to keep his flowers then – instead of being sad when they die 🙂
I think my kids would love all her products! But they’d probably choose the bee pot stick for the nearly ready fairy garden, or the butterfly net since they’ve tried and cannot catch butterflies by hand!
What a great giveaway! My son is desperate to do some gardening – we live in the North West, so our yard consists of pebbles and artificial lawn 🙂 I have promised we will get some pots going – so this post is a good reminder!! I would have to say the seed packets would be a must on our list – imagine having fresh veges that hadn’t been in a refrigerated truck for two days!!!! 🙂
My little 20 month old is gardening mad at the moment! Loves watering the plants and picking vegies straight from the garden. I just know he’d love that Twigz Wheelbarrow so he can be just like his mum and dad!
That is such a cute site and I may have to buy my son the Bug Investigator Kit as he loves walking round our 11 acre property following ant trails and collecting lady bugs.
Thanks for sharing 🙂
Great site! I have just started introducing gardening to my nearly two year old so this was prefect timing!
I think my daughter would also love to use the make your own bird house kit!
Little Miss Charlie is only 6 months now, but already loves being in the garden touching and smelling plants. I plan to put my daughter to work once she can walk 😉 so she will need a little wheelbarrow, don’t you think?
…err, granddaughter, that is!!!!
Our boys have really started to enjoy gardening with us. they have asked for their own garden bed so a wheelburrow would be perfect to assist them in moving all the weeds.
oooh my 4 year old would love this! We garden nearly every day … we have 5 vegie patches and about 15 fruit trees!
She would also love to use a Butterfly net! http://www.gardening4kids.com.au/products-page/twigz-butterfly-net/
she is obsessed with butterflies!
Thanks for the chance to win.
Love your website! Gardening is the activity we enjoy most with the little ones. Great blog posts, very interesting and informative. You’re an engaging writer.
My daughter would love the Pot Sticks… especially the butterfly ones :
My kids would love the Twigz Plant Labels so they knew what seeds were where rather than having to wait until the plants were big enough to produce the fruit!
Twigz Wheelbarrow – I would use it too 🙂
My kids would also love to use the Butterfly Net! The elderly couple next door have the most beautiful garden so we get many butterfly visitors which my kids are fascinated by!.. Then they’d probably LOVE to use the Seedling Garden Party Stickers in their Dirt Girl scrapbooks! =)
I’m a facebook liker & I’m following via email.
The Twigz wheelbarrow
My girls would love the Twigz Mini Greenhouse, then they can care for and watch their watermelon seeds germinate, and grow into healthy little seedlings to plant.
That’s a very healthy garden in all those pics – I have garden envy. I suffer a little bit from the mistake in point 5 – poor watering habits. It was good to have this pointed out as sometimes I think gardens are more resilient than they are.
My son loves spending time in the garden with me. He’d love the bee pot stick. This prize is awesome!!
My Little Boy Would Love the Life for Beginners – In the Garden DVD and Flashcards, Caterpillar Pot Stick and Twigz Wheelbarrow.
He would have so much Fun with these.
Fairy Pot Stick looks very cute and my daughter would love it!
Oh my oldest would LOVE the dirty girl world journal and the other two would love the butterflies
We’re moving to a new house next week & looking forward to planting our Summer crop.
I know that my 4yo son & 2yo daughter would love the Seedling Outdoor Explorer Kit to explore the new garden.
My boy and I garden every day we can, rain wind or shine! He loves playing with dirt and watering plants. We are just picking his first crop of peas now, he’s 22 months old. He loves all of my tools 🙂 the one he would love the most is his own wheelbarrow. He would be so excited! He would probably use it to transport dirt for playing with later 😉
My girl has just got into Dirt Girl World, so she would be so keen on the Dirtgirlworld Scrapbook!
Would have to be the wheelbarrow for my 2 yo daughter. Anything with wheels!
The Twigz Butterfly Net, I think Robert would be doing a lot of chasing and not much catching, but that’s part of the fun
Thank you for passing on the inspiration I need to get the children active in the garden again. We love to explore in the garden but somehow I have lost my focus on creating the magical and whimsical garden that we dreamt of for the children. Time to get back into it! And might be time to grab a Seedling Outdoor Explorer Kit given our little explorers are really enjoying catching all sorts of insects and lizards!
My kids would absolutely love the gorgeous wheelbarrow! How much fun to help mum and dad planting seeds and pulling out weeds! (or taking their teddy’s for a ride in it!!!)
Thanks for the giveaway! 🙂
Wow! What great ideas! My kids would love the twigs plant labels to know what they are watering every day!