Children in the Backyard Garden

Children are natural gardeners - they are curious, like to learn by doing and love to play in the dirt. There is no 'right' age for children to start gardening. Use your backyard garden as a vehicle for encouraging children to make good food choices.

You can involve young children by appealing to all of their senses.

Smell: Encourage them to smell flowers and herbs. Get them to rub in their fingers and smell thyme and rosemary, or any other herb variety.

Taste: You have the opportunity to let children sample the taste of freshly-picked produce that they cared for and made grow. What can be better than the bite of a sun warmed tomato, just picked cucumber. Let them be the first to pull up young carrots, and radish.

Sight: There is so much for children to see in your backyard garden. An inspiration for pictures of their labor.

Sound: In the garden, your child will hear the birds singing and the buzz of bees as they visit each flower in turn.

Touch: Children touch what they see, so encourage them to experience different texture in your backyard garden. Let them handle seeds. Digging soil and getting their hands dirty is a great lesson. Finding homes for any worms you dig up gives them a worthwhile task, especially when they learn how beneficial they are for the soil.

Easy to grow , short growing season, fun to harvest

Fava Beans - The dwarf variety can be grown in small gardens or containers.

Lettuce/Mescaline - Lettuce like part shade, keep soil moist, germination 7-10 days growing season 40-50 days. Head lettuce varieties will mature sooner, about 30-35 days - Good way to interest kids in eating salad.

Radish - Germination 3-10 days, growing season 20-30 days. Plants in cool weather for a mild radish, or hot weather for a hotter radish.

Cherry Tomatoes - These are a lot of fun for a child. Plant in full sun. Put 2" stake alongside each seedling; they need to be tied loosely to stakes as they grow. Water at ground level to keep leaves dry. Growing season is 50-75 days. Cherry Tomatoes can be grown in containers.

Cheat a Little: Depending on the age of the child, you may need to help out a little 'behind the scene'. Not every garden task is pleasant and they may not be ready at all times for all chores. You may need to go out in the evening to pick a few slugs off the lettuce or be the one to run the sprinkler. They don't have to know about every little bit of help you offer - the child's 'ownership' of the plot is the main thing.

Young gardeners - Resource Center

The Great Plant Escape - this is a great primer on gardening written for children; follow the clues and learn the plant growing basics.

My First Garden - a wonderful site from the University of Illinois. All you need to know about getting started with your first garden in a fun and kid-friendly way.

The Adventure of Herman the Worm - Activities, games, and linfo.

KinderGARDEN - Has many links and resources for teaching children about gardening. Check out the fun page and the book list.

Pumpkin Circle - Educational pumpkin-growing activities for kids for home or school

kidsgardening.com/ - view data from 2008 that quantifies the benefits of school and youth gardens

click on picture for other backyard garden items

Birds in the Garden

Birds can directly help your backyard garden by eating weed seeds they find throughout your lawn and garden. They can be a blessing and a frustration due to the fact they have not learned the difference between those squash seeds you carefully planted and the weed seeds that you really want them to consume.

Birds also like to snack on insects, like seeds the birds are not indifferent to the pests and the beneficial insects, so they may gobble up some of your spiders, ants, beetles, and worms (OK not an insect) but they are also nice enough to each aphids, grubs and Japanese beetles. Some birds such as swallows can eat 100s of bugs in a morning snack.

If you decide that you want to attract more birds to your backyard garden there are three simple necessities: food, water, and shelter

Food: Feeding your birds is pretty easy, above I mentioned some of the benefits of the insects and weed seeds that your birds can feast from. There is the obvious bird feeder and given the seeds/food you choose can help determine the species birds you will have visiting your garden.

For example: most songbirds prefer black oil sunflower seeds, while white millet is preferred by most ground feeding birds.

Now of course the more food your birds are eating from your feeders the less pests and weed seeds they are eating from your lawn and garden, but the feeder should attract more birds to your lawn/garden so best to keep those feeders full.

Water: Birds need water to drink but also bathe in. You will want to clean your bird bath about once a week with a diluted bleach solution (3/4 cup bleach to 1 gal water) since unfortunately the birds may use their bath occasionally as a bathroom.

Shelter: Shelters give animals a place to nest and/or hide from predators. There are two types of shelters natural and man-made. If you have some well established trees and/or shrubbery in your yard, you probably have some birds already living with you (whether you know it or not). If you just want to attract more birds to hear singing in your backyard or you want to put them to work getting rid of pests and weeds in your lawn and garden the birds will love it.

Click on picture to see other garden items

Getting A Lot With What You Got

Tip of the Day - Anything with the words patio, pixie, tiny, baby or dwarf in their name is a good bet. Just because a plant is bred to be small does not mean the fruits will be small or the yield will be less.

It is that time of year in my region. (south east) I started planting my backyard garden in early February. Some people do not like to plant this early due to the chance of frost. We had a few nights of freezing temperatures. To keep the frost off the plants, I cover them with plastic at night. The seeds that did not germinate when expected, were replanted immediately.

My back yard garden is planted with everything I could think of (that I like) Radish, Head Lettuce , Leaf Lettuce, Turnip Salad, Mustard Greens, Cabbage, Beets, Kale, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Mustard/Spinach Salad, Carrots, Peas, Green Onions.

It is so exciting watching my garden waiting for the first signs of life trying to peak out of the soil to get some sun.

I know, I know!! How can I plant such a variety of items in a small space (20' X 20') with walking space and space for a table. Can you believe it?


When I decided to turn my backyard into a garden, I had to get creative with my planting since my yard has narrow areas, that are broken up into sections and is full or rocks. (I think the previous tenant had a rock garden) I am constantly relocating rocks to more appropriate areas.






Using pots in my backyard garden for herbs has increased my planting ability.













Check back as my garden back yard garden progresses......

click on picture

unique coil water hose garden plaque