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10 reasons why a children’s garden is the best investment

I think every parent can appreciate finding activities for the whole family to enjoy can certainly be challenging. I’ve had my fair share of lego towers and racing car tracks to last a lifetime and let’s face it, they’re more for the kids than us. Gardening is an activity your entire family can enjoy. Have you ever thought about the benefits of creating a children’s garden and what this means to the whole family? I can assure you, it’s more than an investment in soil and a garden bed.

Children’s garden

The key to enjoying valuable and rewarding family time in your garden is you don’t necessarily have to be working on the same project or in the same garden. As long as you are all outside in the same area, you can still chat and spend time together. In fact, I find the benefits are as bountiful as the harvest.

 

1. Connecting with their senses

Using their senses in the garden can help them connect with Mother Nature on a much deeper level. Out in the garden, they can feel the dirt in their hands, touch the plants, the petals and hold some seeds. Every flower has a different smell and they can compare one scent to another. Any herb can be bruised and sniffed and if they close their eyes, they can guess which one it is.

To the eye, a garden is a seed that has come to life. From colourful flowers to patterns in bark and leaves, and the fruits and vegetables all offer a smile to those who see it.

We love watching for birds and listening to their calls to each other. It’s amazing how many live in our garden, now that we listen to them. Allowing their senses to be activated, will help children understand that we are living with so much more than humans.

 

2. The life cycles and garden science

The best way to visually show a child about the life cycle of a seed is to have them grow a seed themselves. Talk to the kids about the process a seed travels through as it germinates into a plant, especially if it’s a food plant.

You can talk about:

  • The seed’s appearance (lots of different sizes, shapes, and colours)
  • Seed layers (external shell, embryo)
  • What a seed needs to survive (soil, sunlight, water, the right temperature and a place to live

There are lots of different projects you can do in a garden that are mini science projects, like testing your soil using the jar test. Or watching the insects arrive in an insect hotel you built with them. Anything is possible.

 

3. Encouraging healthy eating and wholefood habits

Growing food in your garden is at the backbone of everything we do. Growing food teaches kids about real food, food which doesn’t come from the pantry. It instils an understanding that whole food is essential for our existence and for our health. It’s what we need to fuel our bodies and deliver key nutrients for our basic functioning.

When your child stands outside the pantry next time and says “mum, there’s no food”, you can say, go and grab a snack from the garden. You can eat all the strawberries, blueberries and peas you want.

 

4. Exercise and fine motor skills

Gardening is one of the best core workouts you can get doing an activity. Digging a hole, trying to steer a wheelbarrow full of soil or even raking a yard full of leaves, will all work up a sweat. This is a great way for the kids to get their bodies moving.

For the kids, they are also benefiting by working on their fine motor skills. You’ll find that scooping up the dirt, placing seeds in pots and even pouring water all need concentration. As kids garden, they develop important motor skills that will help them improve their academic skills such as writing, cutting and typing. It’s a win, win.

The best thing about garden exercise is that at the end of the day in the garden you won’t even know you are giving your muscles a workout until you feel a little sore the next day.

 

5. Discovery, education and maths

The garden is full of amazing things to discover and learn about every day. Every plant in the garden has a different story and the kids love absorbing all of this new botanical knowledge.

My kids also love beneficial insects. They are the ones which help our crops to flower through pollination, and the predator insects help us defend our crops when our plants are under attack (entomology).

Not to forget the basics of horticulture which includes everything from seeds, plants, fruit, nuts, mushrooms and non-food plants. It’s all so amazing just watching them absorb it all.

If you add a compost system to your garden you can also discuss the amazing microorganisms that break down the compost into soil, and the smaller eco-systems that are hard at work in different environments in your garden.

Garden maths will also play out for them. They will measure the depth of soil, count seeds, discover the different shapes and sizes of petals and so much more.

 

6. Autonomy and responsibility

They all want to do things themselves and make their own decisions, so this is a perfect situation where they can take responsibility and ownership of their very own space. With some guidance, kids can choose their own plants, grow their own flowers or food, and create a fairy garden within their own children’s garden, on their own terms.

I highly recommend they have their own gloves, boots, tools and gardening hat, so it becomes a ritual for them to put these all on before heading out into their space.

When your child picks a snow pea or a tomato straight from the plant and eats it straight away, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, you know you are doing something right and it’s just another one of many reasons to start a garden for your kids.

 

7. Self Sufficiency Skills

It’s a hard concept to get your head around sometimes but just imagine for a second what life would be like if we taught our kids about supply and demand at a young age. If they learned that you plant what you can consume and that going shopping for your salad meant grabbing a basket and heading out into your garden. It’s a nice thought right?

It all starts with little steps, but we can teach our kids about saving money by growing produce of their own, about investing time and energy into something that gives back and planning our meals around our output.

Imagine you had an abundance of tomatoes. You can show them how they can make salads, dinners, sauces & soups without waste.

 

8. Care of our environment and others

Instead of riding their bikes through the garden without understanding the impact it could have, you’ll find kids can really start to appreciate nature and respect it when they learn how to garden. This skill is often carried into their daily life and in some kids, you can see a genuine transition or shift in their behaviour.

There’s nothing better when instead of killing an ant they move away from it and understand that they have a place in the garden as well. One of the best things I have witnessed with my kids is their appreciation of bees and wasps.

My son has always been frightened of bees and wasps, and fair enough because if they do sting they hurt like hell. After watching them in the pollination process, and listening to what I teach them, my son remains still and watches what they are doing. The kids will often comment on how hard they are working and what an awesome job they are doing in our food garden.

 

9. Fostering Curiosity & Creativity

What can we build? How are we going to build it? What can we grow? How will it look?

Encourage creativity in everything you do in the garden, from making a birdhouse to building a mug bug hotel, challenge their minds and let them lead. There are so many cool DIY projects you can do in the garden with kids.

Working together as a team with hands-on-learning activities will build confidence, curiosity and imagination, not to mention instilling a feeling of worth and belonging.

 

10. Patience

It’s very important for children to have patience in the garden because plants don’t grow overnight. Gardening is often a slow process and they need to find patience. I love watching their faces when they see a seedling emerging through the soil or a flower bud just beginning to open up.

When they pull the carrots out of the ground, clean them and take them into the kitchen for dinner, you know that you’re teaching them something that is bigger than time in the garden. These are skills they will have for life.

Next time you’re thinking about something you can do with the kids, why not consider adding a children’s garden. You’ll be amazed what a packet of seeds, some soil, garden tools and a place to belong will do for your whole family.

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