How To Grow a Kid-Friendly Garden

If gardening is an important aspect of your life and schedule in the spring, summer, and fall, you might encounter a common worry: how will I balance my gardening time with my family time? The answer is simple: merge the two and let your love for the garden extend throughout your family! 


Gardening is a wonderful way to get outdoors, develop a deep appreciation for nature, and spend quality time with your gardening partners. While many people hesitate to start planting with children and bringing kids into their gardening routine, following a few simple steps can leave you equipped for a fun and child safe gardening routine.

 

Create a Dedicated Kid-Friendly Garden Space

 

First, remember it’s not all or nothing. Leaning into planting with children and sharing your garden experience with them doesn’t have to mean you share all of your garden with them. Many people hesitate to bring kids into the garden because they don’t want to give up their favorite thorny roses or delicate irises. 


Depending on your desired garden contents and the ages of your littles, designate separate zones in your garden for kid-friendly versus off-limits areas. Equip your kids’ space with child-sized tools and gloves so they can feel like an official part of your gardening team! This approach can help you settle into a more flexible mindset about your child-friendly garden area while still allowing for a thriving season for your larger garden. 


A dedicated space also helps keep them engaged throughout the gardening season. Kids can water, weed, and watch their plants grow, all while learning valuable lessons about nature and patience. With a dedicated patch of your garden just for them, your littles can begin to develop a sense of ownership and responsibility with a front-row seat to the magic of nature. 

 

Choose Child Safe Plants

 

As you develop a kid-friendly garden or a designated child section of your gardening space, begin by selecting child safe plants for your shared gardening experience. One of the largest obstacles keeping some families from planting with children is the concern that young children will consume something they shouldn’t or injure themselves with prickly plants. 


Especially in flower gardening, it’s important to take a bit of extra time to research. Make sure every part of the plant is nontoxic and won’t cause irritation if it gets into the eyes or onto the skin. Avoid plants that will grow thorns.


On top of opting for child-safe plants, choose varieties that are hardy and durable enough to withstand rougher treatment from young hands. You could choose strong plants for them to help transplant, or you could have them assist with planting seeds. If your children have watched you garden for a season or two, you could even let them choose their favorite flowers, herbs, or vegetables to grow!

 

Make It A Game!

 

Worried your kiddos won’t be into gardening right away? Make it a game! Gardening is a wonderful exercise in patience and delayed gratification, but sometimes it takes a more immediate victory to get little ones engaged and enjoying themselves in the garden. You could create a garden-based scavenger hunt complete with buried treasure, or make a matching game to help your little ones identify real plants using books or flashcards. 


Make even better use of their time by setting up a race or a competition for who can pull the most of one specific type of weed. Or, tie in a bit of imagination by giving them instructions for building a fairy garden or creating a gardening scrapbook. Let them build and get creative, and they’ll come to appreciate the garden as much as you do without seeing gardening time as a chore. 

 

Teach Using Visuals

 

If your kids are involved in early stages of your garden when all you can see are sprouts or fresh soil, incorporate visuals to show them what each space will soon become. Use illustrations or photographs so they can easily identify each area of your garden and watch the magic unfold as reality begins to match the image!


Visuals and labels are also a great way to teach kids about garden safety. You can create signs for different plants and tools with indicators of which ones are only for adults. Create identification cards for the creatures in your garden, teaching your kids which are friends and which should be given a wide berth. 

 

Avoid Toxic Additives

 

The garden is the perfect place for hands-on learning with the ideal balance of freedom and collaboration. Your children can gain confidence and curiosity while developing an appreciation for nature and spending time with you! To make sure this beautiful experience doesn’t have negative consequences on the health of your family, opt for only natural and organic garden additives. Many common fertilizers and pesticides can cause serious harm if they’re handled or accidentally ingested by little ones. 

Keep your family safe and your garden thriving with BugHut! From essential nutrients and garden enhancers to fungicide and insecticide, we create natural products to help your garden thrive, all without harsh chemicals or toxic ingredients. It’s a win for the environment, for your plants, and for your family. 


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