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Growing Organic Vegetables With Your Kids

April 6th, 2010 Posted in Green Living & News

There is something irresistible about dirt and mud for children. Often times, we wish children would opt for cleaner ways to occupy themselves. But let’s be honest, keeping your kids out of the dirt is a losing battle.

Instead, encourage them to turn their love of everything muddy into a love of vegetables.

Sound crazy? It’s actually not. Growing organic vegetables with your kids is a great way to teach them how things grow from the Earth and maybe even get them to eat a carrot.

Want to know more?

• What They Will Learn
• How to Get Started and Get Them Excited
• What to Do If You Don’t Have a Garden

What They Will Learn

Jim Flint, executive director of Friends of Burlington Gardens, in Vermont, plants gardens with his own children as well as children in the community. He explains that while they may not get it at first, in time you can teach children the importance of organic gardening.

Flint says that at first, children may just play in the garden. However, if you make planting part of their play, kids will start to show more of an interest. Eventually, they will develop “garden etiquette” and learn to not trample on the plants.

Once the products of their labor begin to sprout, they will see what watering and weeding can grow.

When children work on gardens from scratch, they are eager to see what will grow from their work. However, growing organic vegetables does not have instantaneous results, you will learn to wait for your rewards. This way, both you and your child will learn patience from working in the garden.

Along with this patience, comes a quiet calmness that comes over children when they work in the soil.

As Flint says, “It’s just such a healthy, therapeutic thing to teach about the living soil. Kids can be wired, and they calm down when they work in the soil. To eat something you produce is a worthwhile and meaningful thing.”

How to Get Started and Get Them Excited

If you’ve never gardened with your children before, it’s not hard to do. Start small and let your kids make some of the gardening decisions.

Before you know it, they’ll be begging you to start growing organic vegetables with them.

Tips for getting kids started

• Start with a manageable size garden (about 6 feet x 10 feet)
• Give your children tasks appropriate for their age (watering and weeding are great for young kids)
• Give children their own spot or container in the garden to work with as they please
• Take them to the nursery and let them pick their favorite plants

Still looking for creative ways make kids love growing organic vegetables?

Grow a themed garden, like one with all the veggies to make pizza or salsa. Many pizza ingredients like tomatoes, sweet peppers, onions, basil, oregano, thyme and parsley, thrive in similar growing conditions. Plant them all together and you’ll turn growing organic vegetables into growing pizzas from the ground.

Tomatoes, jalapenos and onions grown together can also be thrown into a homemade salsa recipe. Your kids will be so excited to make their favorite foods, they may even forget what they’re growing is actually good for them. So organic food benefits can be fun AND healthy.

What to Do If You Don’t Have a Garden

If you do not have access to a garden, you can still teach the importance of eating and growing organic vegetables.

If you can’t grow them yourself, take your kids to a farmer’s market. Show them that fresh produce is the best.

Let them wander and pick the veggies that look good to them. Then plan recipes you can make together with the produce they chose.

Encouraging your children to eat healthy does mean just putting a few broccoli stems on their plates at dinner. Turn growing organic vegetables into something fun you can do together.

Allow them to feel like they’re making the decisions and watch their excitement grow as big as your garden.