Toddler gardening

Tuesday, June 10th 2008, 6:56pm by Claire
Tags assassin bugs, kids
Topics Container Gardening, Organic & Sustainable, Garden Insects

My son's preschool is having a gardening themed week next week.  I gave his teacher a bunch of 4" transplant pots I had saved, and now I've gone through my seed box to find suitable seeds for toddlers to plant.  I'm thinking they have to be pretty big, for little hands to handle, and germinate fairly quickly.  Is there anything besides beans that might work?  Cilantro maybe? 

Any other gardening activities that might work for 18mo-3y/o? 

In other news, according to the guys at whatsthatbug.com, I've got assassin bugs.  This a great thing!  Now if only they could reach inside pumpkin stems and get SVB...

Responses Feed-icon-14x14

Untitled
Sarah O,
Wednesday, June 11th 2008, 7:21am
My son's class (he's 4) grew green beans and/or lima beans. And Max's plant is doing great! We just transplanted it from the little styrofoam cup into a planter yesterday.

(I wanted to add the image here, but you can see it on my image gallery)

I think also sunflowers could work well. And basil can sprout up fast.

Personally, I had good luck getting cilantro to germinate quickly, but less luck getting it to be anything other than spindly... ( kids probably won't care about that)
Nasturtium
Lance,
Wednesday, June 11th 2008, 8:39am
Corn is also kind of fun. Big (and identifiable) seeds. Our silver queen corn that we planted this year took about 5 days to germinate. I imagine the toddlers could plant on Wednesday and by Monday see the corn stalk coming up.
Me.
Claire,
Wednesday, June 11th 2008, 9:21pm
ooh I have extra corn seeds leftover too. My husband's corn crop was a dismal failure, but I suppose for a first attempt, it's to be expected.

I got a bunch of corn from the farmstand we go to every week, and his class is going to have it for snack tomorrow. G is a master at shucking corn now, he'll be able to teach all his buddies :)
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