Creating a vegetable garden with children to build connections and learn while having fun!

Which vegetables to grow with children?

The ideal approach is to start with easy-to-grow vegetables that offer quick results. It’s rewarding, encouraging, and makes you want to do it again!

With younger children (2 to 5 years old), opt for seeds that are easy to sow and water. Radishes or garden cress grow in less than a month. Spinach or lettuce can be harvested just as quickly, and their cultivation is very intuitive.

Children aged 6 to 8 can take care of their own little vegetable patch. At this age, they enjoy understanding, experimenting, and doing things themselves. Beans, peas, courgettes, cherry tomatoes or strawberry plants are perfect: easy to maintain, rewarding to harvest, and delicious to eat.

The key is to let them experience the entire plant cycle, from seed to plate, by choosing crops suited to their age and attention span.

Children can participate in the vegetable garden with age-appropriate tasks

How to create a child-friendly vegetable garden?

No need for a large plot. A single vegetable patch, a planter or pots are enough, provided you choose a well-exposed spot and prepare loose, clean soil.

If you have several children, you can allocate a space for each: each their own patch, each their own crops. This fosters a sense of responsibility and allows everyone to work at their own pace.

Add a playful touch to maintain their enthusiasm for gardening.

♥ A great idea: a bean pole teepee, which transforms into a living den within weeks. Fun, simple to set up, and perfect for growing climbing vegetables.

What if you only have a balcony?

A well-positioned balcony is already an excellent starting point. A few pots, hanging planters or a raised planter are enough to create a child-height mini vegetable garden, very practical for gardening without bending over.

Choose compact vegetables that grow well in pots: cherry tomatoes, radishes, herbs, strawberries, or even cut-and-come-again salads. The ideal is to select deep, well-drained containers filled with enriched vegetable compost, to ensure a good harvest.

Watering is more frequent than in open ground, especially in summer, but this is precisely an easy task to entrust to children. They can observe day by day how the plant develops, while learning to adapt their actions according to the weather.

Even in a few square metres, you can create a lively and sensory nature corner: add some melliferous flowers, a small insect hotel, a bird feeder… The balcony then becomes a true miniature biodiversity observatory, and a source of daily wonder.

Gardening, an adventure to be shared

What matters isn’t just growing vegetables, it’s sharing an experience. By gardening together, we exchange, pass on knowledge, and learn.

• At 3 years old, a child can sow, water, or pick radishes with you.
• By 6, they begin noticing differences between varieties or seasonal changes.
• Around 7-8 years old, they become more independent, ask more questions, and can manage a small vegetable patch alone with slightly more complex vegetables like peas or strawberries.

Let them experiment, ask questions, do things their way. Above all, encourage them to observe what’s happening around them: insects, flowers, snails… The vegetable garden is a living world to discover day by day.

Watering is one of the easy tasks for young children