How to Design a Children's Garden

It's said that gardens grow children, and this is particularly true when
a child's first experiences with gardening are fun and successful.
Nurturing plants and the sharing the bounty are great confidence
builders for budding green thumbs. Indulge your child's curiosity in
bugs, worms and sprouting seeds, and offer plants that mature quickly
with surprising results. You can also help stimulate interest and a takecharge
attitude by including your child in each step of garden planning.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

1. Give your child his or her own small plot or a well-defined section of the larger family garden to encourages a sense of ownership without being overwhelming. A square-yard (or square-meter) garden is a good size for a young child.

2. Talk to your child about where to put the garden. It's an opportunity to share ideas about what plants need to thrive: plenty of sunshine, water and healthy soil. Together, choose a site that is accessible to your child (and the hose).

3. Create a child's garden in just about any shape as long as it includes paths or stepping-stones for easy access to plants. A plot composed of square-foot (or square-meter) planting pockets divided by paths is practical; but a garden shaped like a wagon wheel, with "spokes" dividing the planting beds, works well, too.

4. Plant vegetables that your child loves to eat (or could learn to) and are easy to grow from seed sown directly in the garden. Large seeds, such as beans, cucumbers, pumpkins and zucchini are easiest to plant and sprout quickly. Radishes are the quickest to grow, though seeds are small.

5. Grow dramatic flowers such as sunflowers and zinnias, which have large, fast-growing seeds and produce bold, colorful blossoms. The "mammoth" variety grows to 9 to 12 feet (2.7 to 3.7 m) tall and produces magnificent flower heads loaded with edible seeds. Both require warm soil and full sun.

6. Appeal to all the senses. Include herbs, such as basil and parsley, for garden grazing. Add fragrant plants, such as lemon verbena, rose-scented geraniums and pineapple salvia. Some plants are just for touching, like perennial lamb's ears with its soft, fuzzy leaves and silvery green color.

7. Go to the nursery together to get ideas and choose plants. Include some seedlings, which provide instant gratification and great opportunities to dig holes when transplanting. Sweet cherry tomatoes are a popular choice because they produce loads of bite-size treats that children can pick and eat straight from the garden. In the flower department, snapdragons are favorites because of the flexible dragon's jaw that invites pinching. Let your child choose something new to you, too.

8. Initiate children's projects to keep things interesting while plants grow. Encourage your child to make a sign for the garden such as "Jeff's Place" or "Patricia's Plot." Construct a scarecrow, paint stepping-stones or build a twig teepee. These and other creative endeavors broaden your child's interest in the garden.

9. Remember that half of the fun is to pick, wash and cook up the bounty. Let your child share the joy of the harvest.

Tips & Warnings

• For a wealth of information on gardening with children, go to KidsGardening.com.

• Purchase high-quality, childsize garden tools and teach your child how to use and care for them. Small tools make gardening safer and easier.

• Seed catalog companies offer the best selection of seeds for unusual vegetable and flower varieties. Cyndi's Catalog of Garden Catalogs (www.qnet.com/~johnsonj) lists more than 2,000 seeds.

• Choose varieties in unusual colors and sizes. "Easter egg" radish seeds produce roots in a mix of red, purple and white. "Munchkins" are pumpkins that mature at 3 inches (8 cm) in diameter. "Purple queen" beans ripen to purple and turn green when cooked.

• Keep pesticides locked up, out of sight and reach of children. Safer still, don't use them in the garden at all.