🌱 Tiny Gardeners: How to Get Kids Involved in Gardening This Summer
School’s out, the sun is shining (we hope!) — and the garden is calling. Getting kids into the garden is more than just fun — it’s an amazing opportunity to teach responsibility, spark curiosity, and nurture a lifelong love of nature. Whether you’ve got a big garden or just a sunny windowsill, here’s how to sow the seeds of excitement for your little ones.
👩🌾 Why Gardening Is Great for Kids
Gardening can teach so much more than just how to grow a carrot:
-
Science in action – See the lifecycle of a plant unfold before their eyes
-
Fine motor skills – Digging, planting, watering, and picking require coordination.
-
Patience & care – Watching something grow teaches delayed gratification.
-
Outdoor time – Hello, fresh air and dirty knees!
🌸 Recommended Science Experiment Guide, colour changing flowers!
The site Little Bins for Little Hands hosts a fantastic “Colour Changing Flowers Experiment” tutorial using white flowers and food colouring, complete with step-by-step instructions, learning outcomes, and creative ideas:
engineeringemily.com+12Little Bins for Little Hands+12Frazzled Nature Mom+12
It outlines simple materials (white flowers, food dye, water), explains the science of capillary action, and includes tips like changing variables and recording observations. Perfect for your white rose or cabbage stem test. Our kids loved doing this when they were younger, we even managed to split a stem in half length ways putting each side in a different colour. Well worth a go, have fun!!
🧪 Quick Summary Instructions
-
Choose white flowers or cabbage leaves in clear jars.
-
Add water tinted with food dye (one colour per jar).
-
Monitor over a few hours to overnight and record where the petals begin to change colour.
-
Discuss how water travels up the stem via capillary action—and see it in action!
🌻 Fun Gardening Activities for All Ages
Here are some kid-approved ideas to get them stuck in:
🪴 1. Sow Something Simple
Start with fast-growing favourites like sunflowers, radishes, or nasturtiums. Watching those first leaves pop up is pure magic.
💡 Top tip: Use coir pellets for minimal mess and maximum fun!
🐞 2. Go On a Bug Hunt
Print our FREE Bug Spotter Checklist (here)and see how many helpful garden friends they can find — from ladybirds to moths.
🎨 3. Decorate the Plot
Paint wooden spoons or pebbles as plant markers, or build a DIY sunflower height chart. Let them make the garden their own.
🏡 4. Build a Bug Hotel
Stack pinecones, twigs and bamboo canes in a little crate to attract ladybirds, solitary bees, and other pollinators.
📓 5. Keep a Garden Journal
Encourage children to draw what they see, record plant growth, and log new bugs.
📦 Kits and Goodies to Help You Grow
Check out our Grow Your Own Seeds for kids – specially created for little hands with big imaginations, meet Tommy Tomato, Lewis lettuce, Colin cucumber & their friends.
✨ FREE Printables
💚 Bug Spotter Printable – Tick Off Friendly Garden Insects!
📘 Download “My Garden Journal” Pages
🐝 Top Tip: Attract Pollinators!
Want more bees and butterflies? Plant lavender, marigolds, borage, and cosmos. These are not only pretty but super pollinator-friendly — and easy for kids to grow too!
🌼 Let Them Get Muddy
Above all, don’t worry about perfection. A wonky row of radishes is still a triumph. Let them dig, squelch, water, and wonder. You’re not just growing flowers — you’re growing memories. 🌈