A study has been released that states that kids that garden eat more vegetables. It’s easy to get kids started gardening and on a path toward lifelong health.
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How to Start a Garden for Kids
Burpee advises to start off by giving kids just a small portion of your garden to start, no more than a few square feet.
Kids are naturally interested in gardening once they are exposed to it, gardening employs all five senses and kids really enjoy “digging in”. Start planning your gardens in the winter or early spring. Have discussions about what would be a good idea to plant with the size, space of their garden space. Don’t forget to consider sun/rain limitations. Have them start seeds in simple Dixie cups on a windowsill.
Teach kids about how far to place seeds from each other and how to let the taller growing veggies take root in the back of the garden with the smaller plants occupying the front.
At my own home, I created a much smaller version of a vegetable garden. We grow tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers and whatever else we can fit. I always involve the kids because they love to do it, they love watching the plants grow, and it definitely gets them more interested in trying the foods. My daughter would literally go outside and pick cherry tomatoes off the plant and beg me to wash them right away so she could eat them.
Kids Who Garden Eat More Vegetables
I am not alone in my theory that involving children in the gardening process promotes an interest in eating vegetables. George Ball, Chairman and CEO of national gardening brand W. Atlee Burpee & Company states “In our research at W. Atlee Burpee, we have found that kids who grow vegetables alongside their parents eat them regularly and with gusto.”
The Burpee company found, in a recent poll of their garden customers, that 93 percent of respondents believe that children who engage in vegetable gardening with their parents are more likely to take an interest in eating vegetables. Makes sense!
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Ball feels that if we get children involved in gardening, we can help in the fight against childhood obesity. “With one in every three children in the U.S. either overweight or obese, it’s clear this epidemic is now the nation’s disease,” says Mr. Ball. Getting children to help in the gardening process will hopefully encourage them to make healthy decisions when eating.
For more information on gardening with children, please visit the Burpee Kid’s Gardening page here. Kids that garden eat more vegetables!
