Childhood Obesity Project

Grow a Family Garden

Gardening offers family fun. In a garden, you can be active, relax and spend time together. Growing vegetables or herbs teaches children that plants, like people, need food and water to grow and stay healthy. Caring for plants helps develop responsibility. It also builds self-esteem when kids see what they can grow. A garden can teach your child about new foods. Kids usually taste what they grow!


What you need:

  • Containers for city gardens: milk, juice carton, empty cans, empty bleach bottle, dishpan, plastic bucket, fish bowl, bushel basket
  • Garden plot: a two-foot plot is big enough. Hint: Preparing soil is hard for young children.
  • Child-size tools: watering can, hose, small shovel, old spoon and fork, small rake, digging stick, hoe and spade, sticks to label plants
  • Seeds or seedlings (young plants)
  • Water for your hose or watering can
  • Soil for container gardens
  • Fertilizer: compost, manure, chemical types

Easy foods for kids to grow:

  • Beets,* carrots,* cherry tomatoes,* collard greens,* cucumbers,* green beans,* herbs,* lettuces,* okra, onion,* peppers,* spinach, tomatoes, zucchini
  • In windowsill pot: herbs, seeds to replant as young plants in the garden
    *This grows easily in container

“I can grow things!”

Most kids are proud of what they grow. Even when gardening is messy, your child is learning. He or she can help with almost any gardening task. It’s okay if the garden isn’t planted perfectly.

  • Pick the vegetables or herbs we will grow.
  • Find a sunny place
  • Make the soil ready in a container or in the garden
  • Plant seeds or small plants in the soil
  • Water plants when they are thirsty
  • Measure plants as they grow and vegetables form. Talk about it.
  • Pull the weeds
  • Pick vegetables or herbs when they are ready
  • Wash the food
  • Make something to eat with your family. Use the food you pick.
  • Eat and enjoy it!

 

Reprinted from Nibbles for Health 34 - Nutrition Newsletters for Parents of Young Children, USDA, Food and Nutrition Service More information about Nibbles for Health can be found at www.fns.usda.gov/tn/Resources/nibbles.html.