Child Friendly Gardening

[karlahine]

Hi there all, the sun has decided to come out and play today and with it has brought me inspiration to do some gardening. I'm wondering what things to plant and also a spot for the children to grow their own, and I'm thinking what is the most child friendly veg for them to grow and look after?

DD loved helping pick raspberry's, I grew runner beans, tomato's, carrots, beetroots, cut and come again salad leaves, courgettes and pumpkins. Growing pretty much the same this year. I have been keeping all my yog pots ready for sowing seeds. She isn't keen on getting hands dirty so she likes picking much more, is happy to help me pull weeds though.

Beans and peas always go down well with the DC, and carrots. Courgettes are normally very productive but can be a bit prickly so not ideal for child picking. Radishes also good as quick growing.

Hi last year we grew carrots, green beans, strawberries (great for picking and eating straight away) and courgettes. Agree some courgettes can be a bit prickly, but they grow at such a fantastic rate. My son loved checking up on them every day. Have a look at my website www.kidsinthegarden.co.uk for more ideas.

Sunflowers also good. We like to have a family sunflower competition. Two opportunities to win: first to flower and obviously the tallest growing. You could also do the biggest flower to give more chances to win. My DDs do love a bit of a competition...

Ooo yes sunflowers, they always look loverly. Sweetpeas were my favourite thing to grow when I was a kid, I loved their beautiful scent, but they are toxic so don't eat them and make sure you wash your hands after picking them.

We have chickens too, who free-range, though some patches are heavily netted against them, they just go bonkers for the strawberry plants, they are not interested in the actual strawberries, just the roots.

New potato pots were a source of amazement for us as kids, we used to put a handful of potatos in an old broken bucket that was half filled with soil and then earthed them up when the leaves were all through and the excitement and anticipation was immense.