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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] 10 ways to get kids growing vegetables
  • Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:24:12 -0600



July 1, 2008
10 ways to get kids growing vegetables
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/real_food/article4250869.ece

Ask our expert: I’d like to encourage my kids to grow vegetables but they
don’t seem interested? Sadie Bolet, Warminster

Beverley Glock writes: Home-grown vegetables not only taste fantastic, they
are cheap to grow, and incredibly fresh - they can be on the plate in
minutes. If your children like getting dirty and making mud pies - highly
likely, especially if they're boys - then planting fruit and veg is a great
way to get muddy without getting told off. It's also a useful way to
encourage children to taste vegetables that they might otherwise turn up
their noses at.

Here are ten tips to get you started:

1. Seeds can take ages to germinate and children (and adults) get fed up
waiting, so start with cress or rocket – which grows really quickly, hence
the name.

2. Buy baby vegetable plants for instant gratification and allow the children
to get as dirty as they want planting them. Children come washable and
there’s always the hosepipe to clean them up and water the plants at the same
time.

3. Give the children their own pots, window boxes or dedicated space in a
vegetable plot and encourage them to weed as they "play" in the mud.

4. Get the children to paint the pots with their name, a picture of what they
are growing or just bright, colourful designs.

5. Older children can research seasonal fruit and veg and put together a
planting and picking chart; younger children can help to draw and colour the
fruit and veg on the chart and make it a family effort.

6. Watering the plants can be great fun, just don’t get cross when they end
up drenched, if they enjoy it they’ll do it every evening and it will
encourage them to check on how their plants are doing – just dry their
clothes off overnight.

7. Give the children their own gardening equipment; trowel, spade and fork,
they can paint these, too, to make them individual. Gloves are useful for
children who don’t like getting their hands dirty.

8. Grow sunflowers or pumpkins and see who’s grows the biggest – make sure
you attach a name label to them, or get the children to give their sunflowers
or pumpkins a name and have a chart to record how much they’ve grown every
week.

9. When the vegetables are ready to pick, let the children pick their own,
wash them and prepare them and then do taste tests with shop-bought
vegetables to see if they can taste the difference – this may help them try
different vegetables, too.

10. Keep a butterfly chart to spot the different butterflies which the plants
attract or keep a bumble bee or slug chart to count how many bees or slugs
they spot each day. Expect a high slug count when it’s been raining.





  • [Livingontheland] 10 ways to get kids growing vegetables, Tradingpost, 07/02/2008

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