(HOST) Charlie Nardozzi is an all-around gardening expert with some creative ideas about how to get kids involved in gardening.
(NARDOZZI) There are many ways to garden, but one of the best is to garden with your kids. Not only is kid’s gardening a fun way to spend some time on a project with your child or grandchild, research studies have proven gardening is beneficial in many ways. The National Gardening Association reports that kids who participate in a school gardening program do better academically, have higher self-esteem, work better in teams, have a greater appreciation for the environment, and develop healthier eating habits. Who would have thought so much good could come from a simple garden?
But if you’ve never gardened with a child before or you’ve tried and lost interest as the summer went along, here are some activities to try. They will keep your young kid’s garden simple, engaging, and interesting – without a lot of work.
My mantra with kids is to start small and keep it fun. The temptation is to give your child a "piece of land" in your garden to tend. Even though that worked in the classic kids’ book, The Secret Garden, chances are it won’t work in your home. It’s better to engage kids in a fun project instead. The younger the child, the less "gardening" you’ll be doing and the more you’ll just be playing. But that’s okay, because it’s best to keep the garden a place where they want to be.
Kids love to explore and dig for treasures. One of the few gardening activities my daughter ever did with me when she was young was dig potatoes. But you don’t need to plant a potato garden to have the same experience. You can grow potatoes in a barrel. Here’s how. You can buy a potato bin, or just set up your own, using a 15-gallon plastic drum. Just make sure it’s clean and has drainage holes. Fill the bin 1/3rd deep with a mix of compost and topsoil. Set 3 to 5 seed potatoes inside. Cover the potatoes with a layer of soil. And as the potatoes grow cover them with a layer of compost and topsoil burying the leaves and stems. Continue to cover them each time they poke through the soil until you reach the top of the bin. Keep them well watered. In late summer, once the top layer of potato leaves have completely yellowed, dig through the container to find the "treasures" hidden inside.
Another fun project is to build a sunflower house. Kids love structures to play in. Mark out a 6- to 8-foot diameter circle in the garden. Loosen the soil around the edge of the circle, but leave an opening at one end. Amend the soil with compost. In the circle, plant some tall Mammoth sunflowers mixed with shorter "kid’s size" sunflower varieties, such as ‘Sunspot.’ Mulch the ground with soft hay. As the sunflowers grow, they will naturally create a "house" for kids to hide inside. You can even tie the tops of the tall sunflowers together once they reach their maximum height, to make a sunflower tipi.
So get out and have a little fun with your kids this summer – in the garden.