Getting children involved in gardening and growing is fun, and educational. They can start by helping out in the garden with the hoeing, digging, weeding, watering etc or they can have their own garden to care for. They can start small with a container garden, or go bigger by giving them a corner in the family garden. It is a good way to have kids understand where the vegetables come from and how they grow. It can be very rewarding growing and eating your own produce.

Starting some seeds can be a challenge, so choose seeds that are easy to handle and easy to germinate. Bigger sized seeds such as corn, beans, peas, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, sunflowers, sweet peas, and nasturtiums are good for little fingers. They germinate quickly and with very little effort. The seeds can be started indoors or planted directly outside in the garden when the temperature is warm, and all risk of frost has passed, around mid to late May.

When choosing seeds look for varieties that have a short growing season. Vegetables such as radishes, and lettuce are also good choices as they grow quickly and can be harvested within weeks.

Potatoes are easy to grow and there is a product available at the garden centres that is specific for growing potatoes called the 'Potato Growing Bag'. One nice thing about the bag is the side flaps on the bag that open and close with velcro strips. This makes it easy to harvest the potatoes, and to check the potatoes progress while they are growing, which would be interesting for the kids.

Don't forget to have the kids put labels on the seeds they plant. They can have fun decorating their own labels. Keeping a garden journal might also be a good plan. Children can keep track of when they started the seeds, how deep the seeds were planted, when the seeds germinated, how often they watered, what the young seedlings look like, etc, and when they vegetables were ready to eat. They can also watch for interesting bugs, bees, and insects in the garden and the roles they play. For example bees are needed for pollination, ladybugs eat unwanted pests.

Kids can have a lot of fun gardening with their own tools. There are brightly coloured rakes, shovels, hoes, etc that are lightweight and smaller sized making it easy for the kids to handle.

Another fun planting project for children (and adults too) is fairy gardens.

They are a miniature, make believe world created by using small plants and accessories. They can be either indoors or outdoors, however for our climate I would suggest to make them for indoors. Any type of container can be used, and a good quality indoor potting soil. Choose small, slow growing plants so that there is room for the accessories. There is a wide selection of accessories starting from pebble paving stones, fairies, fairy homes, furniture, pools, etc which are available at the garden centre. Children can have lots of fun creating their own little fairy garden and looking after it.

Gardening is a great hobby, and it is a nice way to spend time with the kids and teach them about how things grow. 

-Jos

Jos Van Hage owns and operates two Art Knapp Home and Garden Centres in Prince George:

• Highway 16 west at Kimball Road
• Highway 97 North at Northwood Pulpmill Road