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| Nurturing green thumbs - the benefits of gardening
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In today's busy world and high-rise living, gardening is an increasingly rare hobby: we don't have the time, the space, or often the knowledge.
However, the garden is a fabulous place for kids to learn many things – developing a respect for nature, an understanding of where food comes from, and the chance to experience many of life's lessons. Gardening can teach patience, responsibility, and the benefits of working together, as kids learn about nurturing life and the process of growth.
Encouraging kids to head into the garden isn't as hard as you might think, and you don't need a large space to do it! A planter on a balcony, a small patch by the front door or taking part in a local community garden is enough to get started. If space is really tight, cress and sprouts can be grown indoors in small plastic tumblers, or even old eggshells.
The chance to get dirty and dig a muddy hole is usually enough to get kids excited about gardening, but if they need some extra coaxing start with simple games such as picking flowers or making mud pies.
Giving kids their own garden space will encourage responsibility and a sense of nurturing something for themselves, so let them dig and explore without boundaries… even if that means just chasing bugs and burying twigs for a while.
Though it's easier to grow plants from seedlings, try the entire cycle of planting seeds, watering and sunshine, and let kids learn from the experience and their mistakes. As the saying goes, 'It's all about the journey, not the destination'.
With that in mind, try and make sure there are some positive outcomes! For this, you might need to help out in the background – a bit of secret night-time watering or picking the odd caterpillar off the lettuce – but with a thriving veggie patch kids are much more likely to want to continue.
As well as the social and environmental benefits of kids getting out in the garden, there is a stack of health benefits too. Kids are much more inclined to eat vegetables they have grown themselves, so gardening is a great way to get kids to try new foods and avoid the nightly battle of the greens!
When choosing what to grow, pick plants that are suitable to your climate and hardy enough to survive the occasional overenthusiastic pruning. Great beginner plants include: strawberries, blueberries, carrots, tomatoes, beans, lettuce and celery.
These are all things that can go straight into lunchboxes so kids can proudly show off their gardening success to their friends! Other interesting plants include climbers such as beans, peas and passionfruit. You can also get kids involved in growing herbs, where they can learn about aromas and flavourings from plants such as mint, basil and lavender. And if your little gardener loves flowers, try daisies, sunflowers and arugula – something which has lovely little flowers and you can eat!
While giving kids a more direct connection to the plants, you can get creative by planting veggies in kids' old toys such as tip-trucks, diggers, an old sandpit, or even tired beach buckets. Even old wellington boots can make great plant pots!
You don't need much equipment for kids to get growing. A small spade, a watering can, and maybe a kid-sized wheelbarrow will be enough to give your little one the tools he needs. And before long, you never know what you might find growing in your garden!
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