Start Off Simple
For Terri Miller, Jackson Wyoming 1st Ward, Driggs Idaho Stake, starting out small and simple meant gardening with her children while they were young. As they grew, she gave them larger gardening responsibilities.

“We started our foray into gardening by having all of our five children help us in one way or another as we gardened,” Terri said. “As the kids grew older, my husband and I gave them a small section of the vegetable garden to plant and take care of.”

Giving children their own share of the outdoor garden to plant can spark their interest in gardening while it teaches them the value of work and responsibility. Again, start simply. Terri suggests sectioning off a small portion of your garden or yard, using rope, a small fence or even stones. Then have your children help prepare the soil for planting, using their own child-sized gardening tools if possible.

Next, allow your children to accompany you to the nursery or garden store to help pick the plants they want to raise and again, keep it simple. If growing plants from seed, think of easily grown plants such as radishes, green beans, pumpkins or sunflowers. All these plants germinate quickly and grow fast enough to keep a child’s interest. Sunflowers are especially fun because they can grow to such towering heights and come in so many different varieties. Your children will love measuring their sunflowers’ growth by standing next to them. By the end of the growing season, your children can either eat their own homegrown sunflower seeds or save them to feed the birds in winter.

Grow Wacky Gardens
Even with a smaller yard or garden, your children can cultivate their green thumbs. One idea used by Pam Hathaway, Delta First Ward, Delta Utah Stake, USA, is to plant a ‘pizza garden.'

“This involves growing a few tomato plants, two or three green pepper plants and an easy-growing herb like basil,” Pam says. “These things can be grown in a small section of the yard, vegetable garden or even together in patio pots. In the fall, the kids harvest their crop and we make a pizza using these homegrown toppings.”

Children also love growing anything that looks fuzzy or funny. Try creating a ‘critter garden’ with hens and chicks*, monkey flowers, Lamb’s Ears and snapdragons. Butterfly gardens, or gardens that attract butterflies, are also fun to grow using colorful flowers such as scabious, aster, salvia and verbena. A garden of basic, cheery annuals such as cosmos, marigolds, zinnias and nasturtiums will please any child, and all these plants can be easily grown from seed or planted as bedding plants. A simple rule of thumb when planting seeds is to plant them twice as deep as the seeds are wide. Tiny seeds may need to be planted just on the soil surface whereas larger seeds can be planted an inch or more below the surface.

For something special, try adding a few herbs to your garden plans. Children love to touch and sniff these very practical and beautiful plants. Try to include a bit of lemon balm and mint to your herb gardens. These have an especially wonderful smell and the kids will love adding a sprig or two of either to their summer lemonade and other cool drinks. When selecting herbs, though, be sure to research on how large they grow. Some can be invasive and require quite a bit of space. If you're confined to a small space, choose herbs such as oregano, thyme and basil, that don’t require a lot of space or a big outdoor production to grow.

A great way to introduce your children to the joys of gardening is planting seeds or bedding plants indoors in a cup, clay pot or any number of other containers. You can do anything from planting a single bean seed in an old cookie tin to planting rosemary and chives in painted clay pots perched on a sunny windowsill. To make indoor gardening even simpler, many nurseries and discount stores sell ready-to-use indoor gardening kits, complete with soil, seeds, instructions and containers. Martha Stewart offers a line of these for sale at K-Mart which are geared especially to children.

Write it Down
As you and your children plan and establish a garden whether indoors or out, remember to spend a little time labeling the plants you are growing to avoid later confusion and frustration. You may even want to have your children draw a map of their gardens or pots, showing exactly where each herb and plant is growing. They can color and label the map then post it where everyone can see it. Creating their own plant labels from large popsicle sticks or tongue depressors can also be a fun activity. Waterproof markers, paints or crayons are ideal for use with this.

Encouraging your children to keep a “gardening journal” is also a great way to keep them focused on their new gardening skills. A daily visit and inspection of the growing garden provides journal-entry opportunities and can be a special time for you and your children. One LDS girl used this to fulfill one of her Young Women’s personal progress projects.

Take a Field Trip
For those of you not blessed with a green thumb, or a yard conducive to gardening, you can still involve your little sprouts in the fun of gardening. First, check your area for any nearby botanical gardens, children’s gardens or arboretums. Most of them have children’s programs, projects and ideas to share with fledgling gardeners. The costs are minimal and give children a chance to have hands-on experiences with plants, seeds and crafts. They are also great places to find information on gardening and other resources for turning you and your child into gardening pros in no time.

Even if you and your young gardeners never become pros, the blessings of gardening are often found in the doing. Few things compare with watching the seasons turn and seeing the Lord’s hand in the renewing and growth of his creations. As you and your children work together through trial and error, gardening will create happy learning experiences and pleasant memories for all of you. In the end, it doesn’t really matter how straight your rows are or how tall your plants grow, what matters is the time you spent together appreciating nature and ultimately, each other.

*Hens and chicks are types flowering perennials which usually have red or purple flowers in the summer.

Make an Easter Centerpiece
Picket Fence Planters with Easter Bunny & Eggs

Supplies:

1. Glue popsicle sticks to the side of the shoe box using craft or school glue. (Note, older kids with adult supervision, can also use a low-temperature glue gun instead.)

2. After the glue has dried, paint the popsicle sticks and box white (or any fun color you wish!).

3. After paint has dried, fill with potting soil and plant grass seeds by directions on package.

4. After a few days the grass will sprout and not long after grow tall.

5. Trim grass to desired height. Place miniature Easter eggs and bunny in grass and display as a centerpiece.

Making Seed Tape

Seed tape is a fun way for kids to be involved with gardening. It makes planting seeds easy for clumsy little fingers, by attaching seeds to a paper tape. The tape is then planted directly into the ground.

Supplies:

1. Pour one tablespoon of flour into a small paper cup.

2. Add water and stir with ordure stick, so that the mixture is a thick paste, similar to play dough,

3. Cut paper towel into one-inch strips.

4. Consult the seed packet to figure out how far apart the seeds should be planted. (i.e., one inch)

5. Assuming the seed packet indicated the seeds should be planted every inch, mark the paper towel strip with a pen every inch.

6. Using the ordure stick, scoop some of the paste onto each pen mark.

7. Place a seed on top of each dot of paste.

Note, you can also make your paste in a plastic bag with a zip-like enclosure. Instead of using an ordure stick to scoop the paste onto the paper towel, cut one corner of the bag and squeeze the paste onto the towel.

-Kathy Egbert (Lawrence University Ward, Topeka Kansas Stake, USA)