Indoor and outdoor gardening with kids

You don’t need lots of outdoor space, you can grow things on a balcony, in a yard or on a windowsill. Indoor or outdoor, the main thing to remember is that lots of light is vital. Find your sunniest spot to give your plant their best chance of thriving.  

Recycle and re-use household items such as yogurt pots, loo roll tubes and old containers for growing things. It’ll save money and reduce your household waste.  

There’s a good chance you don’t need to buy anything to get started growing fruits and vegetables. Leftovers from cooking like lettuce, avocados, tomatoes, apples, onions, sweet potatoes and more can be planted. Vanessa from DIYnCrafts has a great article on 25 foods you can grow from kitchen scraps. 

If you want to get your children into gardening, start with plants that are likely to grow well and relatively quickly, so they can see how fun and rewarding it can be. Cucumbers, beans, and courgettes all have large seeds and are easy to grow. Cherry tomatoes and radishes, have small seeds but grow quite fast.

If you’ve got the space, creating a special mini garden together could help your kids learn about nature, and encourage a sense of responsibility and pride. Observing and discovering nature together - and getting a bit dirty! - is a great way to spend time together and have fun. 

Once you have a selection of home grown, packed-with-vitamins vegetables, you could try some cooking activities. This is a brilliant way to encourage picky eaters to try vegetables. By making their own salads or cooking with food they’ve grown, your child might be more willing to try something new. 

A garden can also provide your child an opportunity to use all their senses and encourage mindfulness. The garden can be used as a canvas for some relaxation and free play. Why not set up a nature trail for your children to follow to find different leaves, flowers and bugs in the garden? Or how about showing them some yoga exercises while having a rest after planting the seeds? Smelling the flowers’ aromas and listening to the buzzing of bees could soothe and help them relax. 

• The BBC have a guide to gardening with children with nature facts, project ideas and easy-to-grow plant inspiration. 

• If you’ve got no soil, seeds or space The Guardian have a beginner's guide to growing vegetables 

• Mark is a gardener with advice on how to grow vegetables, herbs, salad and fruit in containers in small spaces

• Gardening Know How has ideas about how you can reuse things from round your house, from food containers to old socks, to grow things

• Needs some yoga inspiration? Try this bee themed yoga routine

• Want to read more about the benefits of gardening with children? Read more about what children can learn from looking after plants from the BBC’s Tiny, Happy People