Encouraging kids to garden: Let's go play in the dirt!

Gardening can be a great activity to include in your child's summer. It can serve as structured, educational play that lays the foundation for a lifelong appreciation of nature and the environment. But don't tell that to kids. Instead, help them picture it as a fun way to play in the dirt.

Sharing the garden

Having children in the garden can be frustrating for a fastidious gardener or plant collector, but setting a few ground rules can help. Teach children where to walk and what is OK to pick. A gentle reminder of "Where are your feet?" can bring awareness about staying on paths, and a look at some plant roots can help a child understand why they should not walk in garden beds.

For the sake of safety, teach younger children not to pick and eat anything unless you specifically say OK. Teach them the "two-handed" picking technique, where they grasp the plant stem with one hand, then pinch the desired flower or top off with the other. Finally, relax your tolerance for the odd plant that is pulled up by accident or out of curiosity.

If you want to add a child's garden to your yard, a bit of planning will enhance its chance for success. Consider location, plant choices and safety issues.

Defining their space

An urban backyard may provide few choices for siting a child's garden. Try to combine privacy with your need to keep an eye on the kids. Choose a gardening spot that can be seen from where you'll often be, advises the National Gardening Association. Putting the child's garden next to a tree or small deck offers opportunities for getting a different perspective on their spot. If possible, allow your child to help choose the location.

Fences or hedges set boundaries that enhance safety. Other considerations are soil, water and hardscape materials. If you live in an older house, have the soil tested for lead. Prior to the early 1970s, many house paints contained lead, which could chip off and remain in the soil. Site your child's garden away from a water feature, like a pond or stream. If building raised beds or playhouses in the child's garden, choose materials that will be safe on bare feet and not too slippery when wet.

Once the garden is chosen, try to make it truly the child's own space. Allow them to make the paths, choose the plants and add structures or toys.

Secret spots

What was your best childhood memory of the outdoors? Perhaps it was discovering a secret place that was only for you. Try to help your child create one of those. Hiding places could be the low branch of a very leafy tree, the center clearing of a bamboo forest or a home-made fort.

Structures made of vegetables can do the trick. Grow scarlet runner beans up a teepee, or create a tunnel with plastic hoops and wire and grow peas, beans, vining squash or mini pumpkins over it. With enough space, a room can be created by growing corn or sunflowers in a square, leaving an open space for a door.

Other materials that can easily create a structure are supple willow twigs, bamboo or plastic tubing. Hardware cloth can be stretched over a hoop house for shade and privacy.

Growing things

Allowing a child to choose their own plants offers more sense of ownership and accomplishment. Provide a little guidance to make sure they have some easy-to-grow picks. Kids like small vegetables and big flowers, says the NGA's "Parents Primer." Perhaps try unusual-colored vegetables, like purple carrots and "Easter egg" radishes. Giant sunflowers are always a hit.

Children like plants that tickle their other senses too. Fragrant herbs, such as lemon balm, basil, rosemary or lavender, would be good choices that are easy to grow. Growing plants that can be used for snacks or garden tea will be popular.

Plants that attract butterflies are also good selections. Try monarda, echinacea and salvia.

Another approach would be to create an "alphabet garden," choosing plants from aster to zinnia. It's a fun game as well as a method to help children learn plant names.

A word of caution, however. Avoid plants with thorns or blades, and especially those that are toxic if eaten, such as azalea and even rhododendron. For a list of safe and toxic plants, visit the Washington Poison Center's Web site at www.wapc.org/poisons/plantlist.htm.

Going wild

Bugs are a great gateway to getting a child interested in the garden. There is a real sense of wonder at finding worms in the soil, ladybugs on plant leaves and hoverflies in the air near flowers. Slugs and snails, while annoying to most adult gardeners, are fascinating to children. They can be found in predictable places, are slow moving and nonthreatening.

Once children understand that bugs need homes just like humans do, they'll be energized to create bug houses from piles of rocks and twigs, and care for creatures they find among the plants.

Whether children create a garden bursting with well-tended flowers and veggies or a play space that's mostly a place to dig a hole, having their own special plot of land can be much more than just a backyard destination. Part hideaway, science lab and mini-farm, a child's garden can be an easy entryway to the discovery of nature.

Bill Thorness is a freelance garden writer in Seattle: bill@thorness.com