Gardening was never my thing, I always think I can’t plant anything and plants just died around me. However, my mother in law is great at this and once she bought Little E out for gardening and he instantly fell in love with it. He would yell “Water the plant” every morning whenever he saw his grandmother.
Due to his love of gardening, I started to explore and learn more about it. It is very therapeutic, and to be honest looking at the seed sprouts is just amazing! I can’t describe the feeling of accomplishment when my seeds started to sprout.
Below are some great tips for you to check out and hope you will give it a try.
1. Start Somewhere
As I said, Little E started with watering the plants. Since most of us are working from home now, I will water the plant with him in the morning about 8.00am. He will definitely get wet playing with the water and so, immediately I will bring him for his morning bath after this.
However, do take note that I am living in a tropical country (Malaysia), thus the weather is quite hot at 8am. If your country is quite cold in the morning, I suggest not to get your child wet or do this in a sunny time to avoid your kids getting cold.
2. Use quick sprouting seed
My suggestion is to try out tomato seeds. This is because it is super quick to garment and it is super easy to take care later on. You can check out Project Dairies video (embed below) on how to collect seeds and how to plant it. He has a full playlist of tomatoes that you can have a look at before trying.
The reason I suggest using seed is to allow your child to experience from germinating seeds to taking care of a growing plant. The plant is basically growing up with your child.
3. Prepare a Spray Bottle
Let your child water the dedicated baby plants with spray bottles. Sometimes they will pour all the water from the watering can into the plant if you just give them a watering can and trust them. That’s what kids do anyway, they are exploring. So to avoid them murdering any of your baby plants, give them a spray bottle.
4. Ask them questions and talk to them
Instead of just letting them enjoy the sun and watering the plants. Ask them questions and chat with them. Ask them questions like “Do you think it has grown taller today?”, “Do you like the purple flower or the yellow flower?” . Create games like ‘count how many pink flowers we have in this pot.’ . Listen to them, they love to have a chat with you on things they enjoy doing.
5. Keep an eye on them
Is not easy I know but yes please keep an eye on them. This is to avoid them eating any soil. They might accidentally eat up some soil by putting their dirty fingers into their mouth. Is okay for them to play with soil but not put dirty fingers into their mouth as it might cause them to eat worms and you will need to deworm them with medication.
I personally really enjoy gardening with my kid and now we have so many varieties of vegetables and flowers at home. I can’t wait to see the full bloom in my gardens in a few months time!