Download Cool Crops for Kids - The Corporation of Delta

Cool Crops for Kids
Kids in the Garden: 10 ways to fire up their imagination and get them digging!
Gardening can be child’s play. Here are 10 ways to spark a child’s interest in gardening:
1. USE YOUR UNCOMMON SCENTS. Some plants have interesting food-like fragrances. For instance, Cassia
didymobotrya is called the popcorn plant because its foliage gives off the scent of freshly buttered popcorn. It’s
quite amazing. Melianthus major has leaves that smell exactly like peanut butter while Cosmos atrosanguineus
has beautiful maroon flowers that smell like chocolate. You could throw in some lemon-scented geraniums and
peppermint-scented mint and perhaps a Eucomis, which has a flower that resembles a pineapple. Any of these
options will create a fun children’s garden.
2. PLAY WITH FAST-GROWING SEED. Kids want to see quick results for their efforts, so it is best to stick with seed
that germinates quickly. Radish seed is one of the fastest, taking only four to six days to produce leaves. This
makes it perfect for playing a couple of garden games. Children can use radish seed to write their name in the
soil or draw a smiley face or make an x-and-o design. Radish seed is also available in tape form, which makes it a
lot easier to plant in straight rows. Another fast-growing seed worth trying is Catgrass, which takes 15-20 days
and gets its name from the fact that cats love to sniff it and chew on it.
3. GROW ANIMALS. This is a garden full of imaginative creatures. Start with a few sheep with the soft woolly feel
of lamb’s ears (Stachys). Throw in a few gentle dragons (Antirrhinum) with jaws that really snap. For something
a little creepy, how about some back mondo grass (Ophiopogon), which looks like a giant black spider on the
ground? At the back, you could have a gaggle of geese with white nodding heads (Lysimachia clethroides).
4. GROW A POT FULL OF STRAWBERRIES. Memories are made of this: eating sweet strawberries, freshly plucked
from the plant. The plants are available from garden centres now. Plant half a dozen into a
strawberry pot – three on the sides, three at the top – and you’ll have a bumper crop for picking in
summer. Look for ‘Tristar’, which is an everbearing variety, or ‘Sumas’, which will give you a bumper
crop in June.
5. ATTRACT BUTTERFLIES AND HUMMINGBIRDS. Few sights in the garden are as enchanting as seeing a
hummingbird hovering as it feeds at a fuchsia or spotting a butterfly as it flutters over a patch
of phlox. To guarantee your children see these wonderful sights, plant plenty of fuchsia,
foxgloves, petunias and tubes full of nicotiana, which will also add sweet fragrance to the
garden at night. For butterflies, plant phlox, verbena, zinnia and buddleia. They are drawn to
sweet-smelling plants, so roses and sweet peas also lure them to the garden.
6. TRACK DOWN SOME ACTION PLANTS. It’s always a good first step if you can connect a child’s imagination and
innate sense of wonder to the world of plants. You can do this by showing them two of the world’s great action
plants: Mimosa pudica, the sensitive plant, and Dionaea muscipula, the Venus flytrap. These plants are always
magical to watch in action. Even adults find it hard not to want to play with them. The delicate fern-like leaves of
the sensitive plant quickly fold up and droop the second they are touched, only to reform and open up again a
few minutes later. You can buy a ‘Ticklish Tim’ plant for a couple of dollars or pick up seed and raise a tray full at
home. The Venus flytrap has jaw-like leaves that snap shut when triggered. It doesn’t move as quickly as the
mimosa, but it certainly can catch flies. It also looks like a creature from another planet – another big plus with
kids.
7. SPROUT AN AVOCADO. All you need is an avocado seed, three toothpicks and a jar of
water. Jab the toothpicks into the seed so they are evenly spaced around the middle. Set
the avocado seed, flat side down, on top of the jar. Fill the jar with water to cover the
bottom third of the seed. Place the jar in a warm, shaded place. The seed will split open in
a couple of weeks and a root will start to grow from the bottom and a stem will appear at the top. When this
happens, move the jar to a sunny windowsill. After the first leaves appear, put the seed into a pot of ordinary
soil mix. The plant will grow into a small tree.
8. CONDUCT A SCIENCE PROJECT. For the budding scientist in the family, perhaps an invitation to conduct an
experiment will get the gardening connection going. Call it a ‘seed race’. Fill six 4-inch (10cm) plant
pots with soil mix. Label each pot and then plant marigolds, pumpkins, radish, sunflower, beans and
nasturtium. Water and place in a sunny window. See which seed is the first to break through the
surface or which grows faster. Seedlings can all be planted out in the garden.
9. PLANT A TREE. The beauty of this project is that children can see the tree growing and maturing as they do.
They also have a memory of planting the tree with their parents or grandparents. If it is a fruit tree, then there is
the added satisfaction of the harvest. All good memories.
10. BOOKS FOR INSPIRATION. Finally, here are a few books full of fun garden projects for
children and families. Many school libraries probably already have them: The Gardening
Book: Make Your Own Garden with 50 Green Activities by Jane Bull; The Great Seed
Mystery (Avon Books); Weird Things You Can Grow by Janet Goldenberg (Random House);
The Family Garden by Clare Bradley (Lorenz Books); and Gardening with Children by Beth
Richardson (Taunton Press).
The Corporation of Delta
4500 Clarence Taylor Crescent
Delta, BC V4K 3E2
(604) 946-4141