Building a vegetable garden with your kids is more than just fun, it gets them thinking about scientific concepts, encourages them to ask questions, provides physical activity, and of course helps keep their bellies full! According to Eatright.org, gardening with kids helps to grow their palates and encourages them to try new things.

Best of all, you don’t need a lot of space or much of a green thumb to build a container garden that yields delicious eats. We've teamed up with the experts at Burpee to bring you some tips: 
Start by talking with your kids about the container garden it’s an opportunity to engage with them and get them to ask critical questions, here are some prompts:

• What do you think we need to build a garden?
• What do seeds need to grow?
• What do plants eat?
• What is the life cycle of a plant?
• What types of plants can we grow?

Next, have them help you build a list.  Here are some of the items we will use and suggest.

1. A Container
2. Quality soil
3. A hand shovel
4. Water container
5. Stakes
6. Labels
7. Seeds or Seedlings - Strawberries, Tomatoes, Peppers, and Herbs are great places to start! 

Getting Started

Prepping the container

You don’t need anything too expensive to get started, a variety of containers will work, just be sure you can drill or poke a hole in it if it doesn’t have a drainage hole at the bottom. But if you want to keep things simple we recommend and absolutely love these recycled garden bags by Burpee. 

Adding the Soil

We like using a good, organic, all purpose soil.  Make sure you have enough to fill up your container adequately.   Once you have your container ready, pour in the soil, leaving 2-5 inches of space at the top. We used two bags of organic soil and it was perfect!

 

 Planting

Take a look at your plant care cards - they will give you guidelines for success such as how far apart they need to be planted, to what depth, and how much sun/water they need.  

If you plan on having multiple plants in each container, make sure they have similar needs. For example, you don’t want to mix plants that need mostly shade with ones that need full sun.

 
Have your child help you dig holes and gently pop the plants out of their temporary containers and place into the hole. Help them to scoop the excess dirt over the roots.

Label

We used fun label stakes to identify our plants! Have your kids practice writing the name on the label stake and then place it in container.

Care

Follow your plant's directions for sun/water/fertilizer.  You can have your child help with watering, pruning, and harvesting.  

Fun activity: Make a calendar that shows the days your plant(s) need to water and mark the date they should start seeing the plant produce or bloom!

These make great gifts for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, baby showers, and end-of-year teacher gifts. If you use the garden bag, it is easy for kids to carry using the handles!   Mix different size containers and different types of plants for a true garden experience. 

It’s such a fun activity that kids can do almost independently or with friends and family. There are so many different ways to incorporate learning lessons in the process too. 

Want to continue the fun inside?  Make a Figgy garden!

The Figgy can be the start of a play garden!  Take your Figgy, some wooden vegetables, and let your kids plant and harvest their garden.

Use this opportunity to teach your children how plants grow and what goes into ‘making a garden’.  

 

After harvest, you can convert their Figgy into a garden stand where they can play store!

We suggest: 

1. Figgy Play Couch
2. Sarah’s Silks for bundling your harvest, making an apron, a picnic or store!
3. Wooden play vegetables