Fun Gardening Projects for Kids

I think its important to get kids interested in gardening - its a fun activity to get them outside (vitamin D!) and away from the electronics for a while, and a great learning opportunity.  They can find out how things grow and build an understanding of where their food comes from, and it might even get them to eat more veggies!

Here are a few fun project ideas I've thought of or heard about over the years, I hope you and your kids will try one or it will inspire your own ideas for making gardening a fun experience! Feel free to leave comments below with more kid-friendly ideas.

Grow a Food Themed Garden

Do your kids love tacos, pizza, or spaghetti?  You can create a garden themed around one of their favorite foods, then make that food together from the veggies & herbs you harvest!  For a taco or salsa garden for example, grow some tomatoes, jalapenos, onions and cilantro.  For a pizza or pasta garden grow tomatoes, basil, garlic and oregano.  Have fun and be creative, you could choose a different food/theme each year.

Grow a Color Garden

This is a fun idea for another themed garden, just plant a garden with flowers, fruits, herbs and veggies all in your child's favorite color!  For example if they choose purple you could plant eggplants, beets, purple carrots and purple radishes, purple tomatoes (there are several varieties of tomatoes that are a purple color),  purple cabbage and kale varieties, peacock broccoli, blackberries, Thai basil, purple sage, chives (the blooms on chives are purple), morning glories, purple cone flowers & lavender (both great for attracting pollinators!), etc.  You may want to look online for heirloom and less common varieties as the seeds and plant starts at nurseries can be rather limited.  It may get them (and you) to grow and eat foods you might never have tried before!

Have a Sunflower Race

This is an easy project that you can do on a windowsill and can include the whole family.  You just need styrofoam cups with a few holes poked in the bottom for drainage (or reuse small plastic pots you got plant starts from the nursery in), soil, and a packet of sunflower seeds. Write each family member's name on a cup and have them choose a seed or 2 and plant it.  Set a time limit like 2 weeks or a month and see who's plant grows the tallest!  Kids should have fun checking on their sunflower's progress, and you could even have each person be responsible for caring for their own plant.  Once they are a good size they can be transplanted outside, and kids will also be impressed with how big these flowers get - depending on the variety they can grow to 6 feet tall or more!  You could use other types of plants too, sunflowers work well since they grow quickly and straight up and have a good germination rate, but you could do the same thing with tomatoes too, or maybe corn.

Get Artsy

A fun art related gardening project is handmade plant labels.  Let kids get creative and crafty using their budding artistic skills to decorate plant markers.  Some paint, maybe some glitter, permanent pens and large rocks from the garden or wooden stakes (or stir sticks for paint, usually available for free at the home improvement store) are all you will need.  They will have fun making them and its also a practical way to remember where you planted what, or which variety.

Grow Berries

Kids love sweets, so why not give them something healthy and easy to harvest that satisfies that sweet tooth and also provides antioxidants and vitamins?!  They should have a fun time helping to pick them and its easy to tell which berries are ripe by their color.  Try strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc. Remember each has different preferred growing conditions, space or pruning requirements and different varieties do better in different planting zones, so do a little research before picking your plants.  Also remember to make sure kids know to only pick and eat from these specific plants, never berries they find in other yards or growing wild.

Pennies for Weeds

Need some help with all those weeds?  Why not utilize the help of little hands!  Make sure to teach them the difference between a weed and plants you want to keep, then let them loose in the garden to earn a penny for each weed pulled.  They will have fun and you will get rid of those pesky weeds for relatively little investment, plus you'll finally have a good use for all those coins in your spare change jar.

Dig for Buried Treasure

Turn your potato harvest into an exciting event by calling it a treasure hunt!  This is another great way to get a little help in the garden, you could even turn it into a contest to see who can find the most potatoes.  Make things even more fun by planting a variety of different kinds and colors of potato - white, yellow, red, purple, and even sweet potatoes.  You will probably need to loosen the soil for them, but they should have fun getting a little dirty and finding the buried treasures, and getting to eat them for dinner later!

A Garden of Their Very Own

A really great way to get kids interested in gardening is to give them a garden plot of their very own!  Section out a little space just for them, or a raised garden bed, and let them choose and plant what ever they want in it.  You could even help them make their own sign with their name on it so they really feel like it is theirs, and even have them be responsible (mostly) for taking care of it.  Kids love having a sense of ownership and control over something, and it will also teach them about planning, consistency & responsibility, as well as an appreciation for nature.

I remember loving my little corner of the garden that I got to have as a kid, I constantly checked on it and got to choose plants & seeds for it whenever we went to the garden center, I even enjoyed watering and weeding it because it was mine.  Best of all your child will get rewarded for their hard work with delicious healthy food that they grew themselves!