Ideas to encourage children

[Scarlet]

Have you looked underneath yours?

I'm really confused now, what's under your neighbours trampoline? I have grass under mine...

Have you been visited by the council noise team?
Have your neighbours moved?

Nope! We never had any neighbours to start with.

[Scarlet]

Definitely keep it simple, my kids loved looking for bits of wood and making a camp with cardboard.
As they got a little older it was magnifying glasses to make fire, or hand trowels to dig "man traps" covered over with twigs!

[sparrow100]

My god-daughter started to come and visit the plot this summer. I let her try anything she liked the look of, she helped with watering, now eats runner beans without screaming and is really interested in growing and seed saving. To the extent that she is having half of one of my beds next year which we will just plant with things she likes to eat. Am loving the extra time I have with her, as well as introducing her to new foods.

Have you had a look at the info for growing fruit & veggies in schools? I found that really helpful.

[Dorothy rouse]

My grandson age 6, is currently mad on dinosaurs, knows everything there is to know! Our plots do have a lot of bones, apparently they used to bury horses there, so he'd dig for hours, looking for bones, unfortunately he doesn't live near. Don't know if little girls are also into this kind of thing? Sorry that does sound a bit sexist, it's not meant to be, I only have grandsons (at the moment)!

[Mumbles]

My grandson age 6, is currently mad on dinosaurs, knows everything there is to know! Our plots do have a lot of bones, apparently they used to bury horses there, so he'd dig for hours, looking for bones, unfortunately he doesn't live near. Don't know if little girls are also into this kind of thing? Sorry that does sound a bit sexist, it's not meant to be, I only have grandsons (at the moment)!

We found bones when renovating the cottage we lived in as a kid, as a 7 year old girl I thought it was very exciting so you never know...

As for getting them interested in gardens without animals buried in them my little girl (almost five, but been interested since about 3) loves going on a bug hunt to find caterpillars and slugs and loves to see fruit/veg/flowers forming in their different stages. Her interest mainly came from her just asking what I was doing whenever I was in the garden


Sent from my iPhone using Grow Your Own Forum

[Guest]

I might have to make you all stop, I am starting to remember too much of when I was a kid!

Anyone eating look away now and skip this post.

When I was little I went to nature club as an after school activity and one of the things I done was dissect an owl pellet (poo!) to see what it had eaten and all the bones and at the time I thought it was great

[Alison]

My friend's kids (one of each, both primary age) were up my plot the other week, got them digging for treasure in the spud bed. They were really excited every time they found any.

[ancee]

If it's not too late - and you have any, let them open the casing of a dried, brown runner bean pod. I got my Madeleine (15 year old daughter who despises outside and nature in general), to do this.
The result? Utter enchantment!
As the beans are so Alice in Wonderland-y! Purple, large, bean-shaped and dotty. She was enthralled! She now has a jar of them in her room which she uses to stand her make-up brushes in. Not quite a gardener yet, but there was a glimmer of hope!
Oh- and she showed her friends! :O

[greenishfing]

Tell the kids that they aren't old enough to do a certain thing ..........maybe in a few years. If they are anything like the kids I know they will go all out to prove they are big/old enough and when allowed give it all their energy.

This method has worked for for all kind of things.

Even got the neighbour's kids to polish all my brass one day with this method. Their mother was in shock when she saw them beavering away.

Hope to get my niece to strim my paths shortly with this method.

[Dorothy rouse]

I love the look of sheer amazement when my grandsons 'dug up' potatoes on my plot, age about 3, 'tatoos' gama! Tatoes! ( I had checked the day before to make sure there were some just near the surface).

[helenbun2005]

Just to add to this, but not really gardening related as such: when I was a child, my grandma had a large rockery on one side of her garden, but with lots of beautiful flowers planted in it...and she used to buy little garden ornaments; normally animals, and hide them amongst the flowers on the rockery, and every time we visited, my cousins and I used to love trying to find them all and discover new ones! (she also used to move around the old ones and made out they liked to moved by themselves for a change!)

[veggiechicken]

I do that to amuse myself and visitors I hide all sorts of tat in the cracks of the old stone walls They grow over with ivy and when I chop it back, you can't believe how excited I am when I find something

[Lumpy]

My grandson is 4 next month so earlier this year I spotted a packet of seeds for children in the garden centre that had a gnome on the front (they were salad leaves) so.....I got the seeds and acquired a gnome from Poundland. Sat the gnome on a planter and waited for Josh to arrive. He was fascinated by the gnome, who is now called Gordon and by the seeds that had Gordon on the packet.
Me, Josh and Gordon planted the seeds and Gordon was told to help them grow. A couple of weeks later Gordon had done his job and the salad leaves were pulled by Josh and eaten in a sandwich.
I think Josh identifies with the gnome as a small friend.
Anyhow other planters were done over the summer and each time Josh has used Gordons help - he sits on the edge of the planter etc.
Downside of this plan is we now have Gordon - Graham - Grenville and Gervaise. Name suggestions curtesy of grandad.

[Kristen]

My girls loved growing Gourds when they were young. Plenty of scrambling foliage to impress! and the uglier the fruit the better ... downside was that they had to be lovingly retained, in a pyramid in a bowl in the hall, long after they had started to deteriorate!

Couldn't find a way to get them to grow anything edible instead though ...

[murphyjf]

My 4 year old loves the garden everything and anything digging filling pots, planting seeds, and plug plants which are good cause they can see a result straight away my advise though find a way to mark whos planted what cause it causes murder lol. sugarsnap peas and strawberries are a winner in my house cause the peas can be picked and eaten straight away and the strawberries are great cause they seem to fruit over night and can be taken to school as a health snack that they have grown. This year 2 of my boys are growing strawberry and pepper plants for their teachers lol.

OH yes and watering dear god how they love to water the plants lmao