For the Home

5 Things You Need to Garden with Kids

We’re a big gardening family! I love it, and my kids love it! Plus, it’s the perfect way to get outdoors and have a little fun together. I’m sharing 5 things you need to gather as you begin to garden with kids!

Growing and Planting a Garden with Kids

Planting and growing is one thing my kids love to do with me that doesn’t feel like a chore. I don’t know if it’s the dirt they get to put their hands in or watching our vegetables grow, but it’s something we all can do together.

I’m happy to partner with Miracle-Gro today, an M&T sponsor, to help you get inspired to “Gro” as well! If you visit their Gro Project facebook page, you’ll see some perfect planting ideas for your home: Teyrarium, Ukulele Garden, Origami Planter.

5 Things You Need to Garden with Kids

There are all kinds of things to grow and garden with kids. Planting and growing a vegetable garden is our favorite. My kids love to watch the plants grow, as it seems they grow a few inches everyday. But since we’ve already planted our veggies for the season a month or so ago, today it’s time to get a couple of flower pots ready to display on our deck.

For helping in the garden, here are a few tips I’ve come across as I garden with my kids:

1. Garden Supplies:

You’ll want a pot – preferably something plastic for kids so it’s light, potting soil, and your flowers. The outside of our house is green, so we chose some bright colors to accent our home for the planter. Dahlias, purple violas and yellow violas.

Planting a Flower Pot

We chose the purple viola because they look like mini “pansies touched with yellow gold”, a song my grandma sang to me and I sing to my girls! It’s fun to plant something that has meaning for your family! It makes it all the more fun.

Purple Viola Plants

2. Good Gloves:

I’ve purchased all the wrong gloves in the past. I used to buy the basic brown gloves that were cheap, but they never fit and didn’t last. I love a glove that has rubber material or grip to the inside, as it helps keep traction on tools and keeps away the prickly plants from pricking. Pictured below are both kid-size gloves. The blue ones are good for little ones to help water and plant flowers. But I love the rubber-ish green ones when my kids help with bigger yard work jobs like weeding or raking.

Gardening Gloves

3. Sunscreen:

Those sweet little faces, shoulders, and arms definitely need protection from the sun. We keep our sunscreen right at the back door, making it easy to lotion up before we head out the door. It always helps prevent those sad little red sunburned cheeks and noses from appearing. And gardening might seem like a simple activity, but beware, the sun can get you from almost anywhere.

Sunblock for Gardening

4. Chairs:

This is important, we all need to take breaks. It’s a good idea to have a few chairs nearby, sometimes gardening can be hard work. Or maybe instead of a few helpers, you end up with “supervisors”! It’s also good to have a garden kneeling pad as well, if you plan to stick yourself in one spot for a length of time.

Gardening Chairs

5. Watering Can:

My kids can’t get enough of the watering can. We’ve now had to buy one for each, just little $1 size, so they each can have a turn. They divide up the vegetables and flowers in our garden, who can water the tomatoes or the carrots! Even if you have a watering system set up, it’s still fun to have a watering can around for the kids to be a part of the watering process.

Watering Cans for Gardening

*Originally posted: 5/16/13

Marie

Marie is a mom of 3 living in Seattle, WA. She's been the founder and managing editor of Make and Takes for the last 16 years, sharing DIY tutorials for home, family, and fun. Author of Make and Takes for Kids, Early Childhood and Elementary graduate, and currently teaching 2nd grade in Seattle!

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76 comments

  6. Would love to plant tomatoes, and show my girl that living in the city doesn’t mean you can’t have a garden!

  8. We love to plant a rainbow of flowers every year. It’s become a tradition for the kids to pick out a flower in each color of the rainbow and plant them. We love gardening! :)

  13. Always wanted to go to holland to see the tulips, maybe i should grow my own…and some sunflowers too!

  19. I would love to grow the strawberries. I can’t get enough strawberries and they are so expensive in the grocery store!

  20. We’ll making The Origami Garden as soon as my kids get out from school! It looks fun!

  25. I love the license plate project and I really love Mama B’s Garden pic’s too!

  28. The toyrarium or succulent garden look like super fun projects I’d love to try! Thanks for the chance! :)
    lorepuckett at verizon dot net

  36. I would love to start a strawberry garden. First though I would love to get some of our favorite vegetables planted to have fresh from the garden dinners. I’m lucky this year as our Granddaughter is living with us so I can teach her how to do a little garden.

  38. We just started planting some seeds in our garden. I’m excited to see them come up.

  39. We are gro-ing veggies, herbs and flowers. I can’t wait to get a big hanging basket for right outside our front door!

  41. My kids love helping me out in the garden! We’ve done two geranium planters, herb garden planter and my daughter’s impatiens planter. In our garden so far we have onions, tomatoes and peppers. We love this time of year!

  47. Whatever my husband wants. He’s the gardener of the family – I just enjoy what he does.

  49. My daughter’s only 18 months, but she likes to help me dig the holes and water the plants. We’ve set up pots of lemongrass on our patio for occasional cooking use, but mainly as a mosquito repellent. We also are going to get the annuals potted this weekend. I’d love to “Gro” some bell peppers because we put them in almost everything we cook and my daughter loves to eat them fresh!

    1. whoops forgot to put the project I’d like to do! I really love that origami garden!

    1. There are some herbs that flourish here in AZ from my experience. My basil did really well in the plastic containers outside (the ceramic ones dried out the soil too quickly from getting really hot). Lemongrass does amazing here with very little care. Rosemary once it’s established also does really well.

  52. We’ve began growing a lot of plants but we could use more strawberries for sure. They’re a favorite around here!

  54. My kids are SO excited this year to plant in our new raised beds…they’ve even talked their dad into building them each their own mini-version of mine! One is planting cucumbers and the other jack-be-little pumpkins and cantaloupes. So fun!

  55. My girls are having fun watering flowers this spring and really want to plan some vegetables.

  64. I would like to try their origami garden project, or some hanging tomato plants.

  66. I love the kids terrarium project from their Pinterest page–http://pinterest.com/pin/403142604114234587/

  67. I like all the ideas for bulbs — my husband and I are wanting to do a lot more with our new house’s yard starting this fall.

  72. l’d like to start a vegetable potted garden, like those in your Stepping into Spring board. :)

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