Ask a Master Gardener: Kids in the Garden: Swapping Screen Time for Sunshine
- Jennifer McDonald
- 17 hours ago
- 3 min read
By: Barbara Boone, Mobile County Master Gardener | www.mobilecountymastergardeners.org
Today, many parents are concerned about their children spending so much time on their electronic devices: phones, tablets, or computers; gaming or logging onto their favorite social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Now, as summer approaches, there is even more concern as there are more hours free to be spent on their devices.
To be fair, there are opportunities for virtual gardening such as Roblox and Minecraft, where players plant and cultivate virtual vegetables and flowers, imagining what is required for success, like soil, water, fertilizer, and weather. Virtual gardening might plant the seed to transition from on-screen gardens to the gardens in the great outdoors. For those of us who have budding gardeners in the family, teaching them that digging in the soil yields more than a ripe tomato or a bouquet of flowers.
Gardening is about curiosity, confidence, responsibility, creativity, connection with nature, and the pure joy of seeing the first evidence of germination. All of this is available outside in the sunshine and the soil, where hands do get dirty. Dirt spells fun, which is the most important thing to remember when introducing kids to gardening.
How to get kids started? First consider the age of the gardener. If they are very young, they will need more oversight. Consider creating a garden theme such as an easy-to-pick “Snack” garden, including vegetables like cherry tomatoes and snap peas. Kids can also learn about butterfly and bee pollination in a nectar-rich flower garden with cornflowers, salvia, sunflowers, and milkweed. Especially fun would be a “Secret Garden” teepee growing a vining vegetable or flower.
Older kids need less oversight but more recommendations. What both age groups need to get excited about gardening is a sense of ownership, the second most important aspect of introducing kids to the garden:
1. Starting their own seeds or choosing their own seedlings.
2. Choosing their own garden space, either in the ground, raised bed, grow bags, containers, or a sunny windowsill.
3. Participating in soil testing and providing soil amendments as needed.
4. Providing water on a regular schedule.
5. Choosing their own kid-size garden implements such as a trowel, a rake, and some gloves.
The first thing that gets any gardener at any age most excited is choosing what to grow. Save seed and plant catalogs from which kids can choose or visit a local nursery. Encourage gardening space organization but let kids plan their own space, no matter how it looks. Very young kids can be encouraged by planting fast-germinators like radishes, lettuce, and sunflowers. Older kids can grow the same but add herbs, beans (bush or pole), tomatoes, and cucumbers. These plants may require more space and probably structures for plants spreading out and gaining height. In either case, with a little patience, kids learn how good a fresh vegetable tastes or how attractive a fresh bouquet looks when grown with their own hands.
In addition to kids gardening in the backyard or the patio, there are local opportunities at the Mobile Botanical Gardens NatureBlast summer camps scheduled June 8-12 and June 15-18 (see Events below). The Community Gardens also offer after school programs, learning that summertime in the garden is just more fun.
So, within a few weeks this summer, kids will have earned a “farmer’s tan,” some vegetables and flowers to add to the table, plus unique pictures to show their friends how they spent this summer.
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