Most children love planting and caring for growing plants. It’s such a great activity for holidays, weekends and longer evenings. Teaching your kids to tend to plants and help in the garden is a lovely way of developing independence and also helps them to learn where their food comes from.

Growing fruit and vegetables together might even help a once fussy eater clear their plate – so what are you waiting for?!

Cress

A great place to start off gardening with young children is with cress. It is so easy it’s almost impossible to get wrong – plus it can be done all year round just on the windowsill.

Simply place the cress seeds on some damp kitchen roll on a saucer and pop it by a window, or why not try making a cress egg head with a leftover hardboiled eggshell?

Find out more about growing cress

Quick growing seeds

Once you have mastered cress you can move on to other quick growing seeds. You could try herbs such as basil and mint, flowers like Sweet William, or vegetables such as tomatoes or lettuce. Your children will get such joy out of seeing the first shoots appearing and will be able to watch the whole process unfold.

Their own space

Keep it fun and let them do as much as possible by themselves. Give them their own small section in the garden or their own pots, so they won’t ruin your grown up flower beds. Make sure “their garden” gets a decent amount of sun, otherwise nothing will grow and the children will be put off gardening. For younger children get them to name their plants for a bit of extra fun.

Read more tips on gardening with kids

Big impression

Another great way to get kids hooked on gardening is letting a little work give a big impression. All children love a sunflower and they will be amazed at how big they grow. Why not plant one for each of the family and have a sunflower race? Whose will be the biggest?!

Find out everything you need to know about growing sunflower

Source: Net Mums