Gardening for kids can be a wondrous event. Children love to see something they planted in their very own "child garden" grow, and then produce something great to eat that looks nothing like the original little seed or plant. Come to think of it, adult gardeners revel in that experience too!
The easiest vegetable gardens for a child are: a container garden, a square foot garden, or a raised bed garden. These are easiest because they require less care.
If you have a large traditional single row vegetable garden already established, just section off a small portion of it for your child.
The size bed recommended by Square Foot Gardening.com for a child's garden is 3' X 3'. Square foot gardening utilizes raised garden beds with the addition of square foot grids over beds as a visual aid. An intensive gardening technique that focuses on organic gardening methods, a square foot garden might be just the thing for your child's first garden.
You could even create a "carry along" garden, which is just a square box, small enough to move from place to place (for example out of a storm.) Instead of amending your existing soil, you create "new" soil for your square foot bed. You can read all about square foot gardening at www.squarefootgardening.com.
Aside from container gardening (read more about container gardening here), square foot gardening is the easiest method, since unlike traditional raised beds, the new square foot gardening technique does not call for digging or amending the soil below the bed. According to the revised Square Foot Gardening, simply put down newspaper or cardboard under your bed, wet the newspaper, and then fill the box with new soil. This will help keep weeds out. You could even put ply board on the bottom with holes drilled in it.
A perfect soil helps create healthier plants. So give your child's first garden the best chance of success by making sure the soil you begin with is optimum. You can amend your own soil with peat moss and compost, or buy packaged soil mixes. Remember to steer clear of chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
Perhaps easiest of all is a self-watering container garden, like the Earth Box.
I also recommend heirloom variety seeds and plants for children, not hybrid varieties. You may want to teach your children how to save seeds to use next year, and you cannot do that if the plant is a hybrid. (Read Heirloom Seeds vs Hybrid for more information.)
For more how-to information on raised garden beds, see my previous articles on raised bed gardening here and here.
You have many options for raised beds these days. You can buy raised bed garden kits online that require no nails or tools (For example, see www.bluegrassgardenbeds.com.)
You could use bricks, concrete or wood for your raised garden bed. Do not use treated wood since chemicals may leech into the soil. Watch for the next article when we'll discuss ideas of what to plant.
Check out my blog, Gardening for Kids: Science Project for an interesting activity to teach children how plants use water. Also, see Gardening for Kids for more gardening ideas for children!
