Growing Good Eaters: 5 Easy Vegetables to Grow With Kids
“I’m going to get a snack!” announces 3-year-old Mason. And instead of going to the pantry or fridge, he opens the front door and heads out to pick it fresh from the family’s vegetable garden.
His mother, Sarah Renfro of Renee’s Garden, has been gardening with him by her side since he was 5 months old. When it comes to finding the best vegetables to grow with kids, she enjoys the research process. “I’ve found that Mason will try anything we’ve grown in the garden,” she says.
“He understands the connection between planting the seeds, watering, harvesting and eating. If he knows that he grew the veggies then he is excited and proud to eat them.”
The Benefits of Gardening with Kids
Kids who participate in garden projects have increased interest in eating fresh fruits and vegetables, according to a Journal of the American Dietetic Associations study. Gardening is also a great form of exercise – burning 200 or more calories per hour. School garden programs are connected with reducing risk of childhood obesity.
Related: 52 Fun Experiments to Learn, Grow, Harvest, Play, and Enjoy Your Garden
Cultivating young gardeners will reap benefits far beyond healthy eating habits, teaching patience and an understanding of cause and effect among other things. Mother and nutrition educator Caitlin Phillips Karimzadeh gardens with kids aged two to five at her son’s school.
She has seen an increase in observation skills, curiosity, and a willingness to collaborate among the children who work with her in the garden. “The children take responsibility and ownership in the garden as a place to be and watch unfold,” she says. “I love the metaphorical sense of growing the seed to the plant as so the human being.”
“Gardening can be a small simple project,” says Kate Purcell, who designs family-friendly food gardens. “A garden doesn’t have to be perfect for a kid to love it.” You can turn a small corner of your yard, a few pretty containers on a balcony, or a strip of sidewalk median into a mini vegetable garden.
5 Easy Vegetables to Grow With Kids
Are you ready to get your kids started? These five vegetables will help kids have a successful first garden. They grow quickly from seed or starts, are hardy, and taste great. They’ll make it easy for your kids to plant, tend and harvest their tasty rewards this summer.
Say Peas!
Snap peas should be planted in early spring. They grow best in cool weather, making them a good child’s introduction to the garden. Once the pods set they ripen quickly and can be eaten raw off the plant, shell and all, when still small.
When the pods are larger, teach your child to shuck them. This is a fun family activity and a good opportunity to talk with your child about their day.
Prehistoric Kale
Kale plants grow incredibly healthy leaves, loaded with calcium, iron and antioxidants. It grows well in the cooler spring and fall months, but will also grow year-round in mild climates.
A kid-favorite way to prepare kale is roasted and lightly salted, which turns the textured leaves into the healthiest chips they’ve ever eaten. Be sure to tell your young gardeners that Tuscan Kale is also called “dinosaur kale.”
Bean Hunt
Runner beans, like the ones grown in cups in 1st grade classrooms everywhere, grow incredibly fast in warm weather. You can train them to grow up poles tied into a teepee shape and create a kid-sized hide-out. Even if you just grow them vertically on a trellis, your kids will love having a treasure hunt for ripe pods before dinner.
Carrot Surprise
Carrots are fascinating to kids because of the mystery: they see the leaves, but the carrot is hidden under ground. Show your kids how to scatter carrot seeds around the base of the pea plants. By the time the pea vines have died back the first carrots will be ready to harvest. Planting heirloom carrots in a mix of colors, like yellow and purple, will add an extra element of surprise to the harvest.
Tiny Tasty Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes are a delicious treat eaten straight off the vine, still warm from the sun. Once your kids discover this you may find that ripe tomatoes never actually make it to your kitchen.
Don’t Forget Pollinators
Plant butterfly and bee friendly flowers in a “pollinator patch” to help increase your harvest. Kids will love watching butterflies visit your garden. And watching them slowly flutter their wings or seeing a bee covered in pollen as it buzzes from flower to flower is a great science lesson!
Black eyed Susans and sunflowers are easy to grow from seeds. And after they finish blooming, sunflower seeds help feed local and migratory birds.
What better way to get a child interested in eating vegetables than helping them to grow their own? If you have favorite vegetables to grow with kids, tell us in the comments!