Gardening with kids

Getting kids involved in gardening has a wealth of benefits. I was pleased to see my childcare provider, Flexible Childcare Services Scotland are always keen to get the kids out and involved in the garden at their centre. This is one of my sons, Euan, having a great time planting up some seeds at the nursery

We know from heaps of research, the benefits of gardening on health - physical, mental and social, so what do we know about it regarding children?

The following link from Early Learning Future talks about the sensory development kids will experience, encouraging eating healthy and most importantly, whole foods. They suggest gardening teaches patience and responsibility, as well as the development of social skills, but they also note the educational aspect and the ability to teach subjects such as maths, outdoors in the garden. This endpoint about just taking the kids outdoors, into green space is just as important and good for them as getting them gardening, as we know again from research, the benefits of green spaces on our health.

The BBC has a nice link and website all about gardening for kids you can check out here and this is echoed by the RHS.

This week, myself and my sons headed over to the garden to prepare the 4 oldest raised beds which had been covered over for the winter. We got to work by raking over the beds and loosening up the soil, as well as removing any weeds that had managed to sneak in there despite the covers. We then fed the beds with some bonemeal and fish blood, before topping them all up with some peat-free compost. We planted potatoes in two of the beds and the other two beds are going to be planted up with onions by the kids from Flexible Childcare Services Scotland (pictures to follow with permission).

We planted Charlotte and White Duke (Duke of York) potatoes and you can find out more about how potatoes grow in this handy video.