It’s Food Revolution Day! Unsure as to what that is? It’s a campaign fronted by Jamie Oliver that revolves around educating children about food, where it comes from and how it affects their bodies. So what better way to educate your children about food than growing some at home?
Gardening with your children isn’t just a great way to spend quality time with them, it also benefits your kids by:
- building an awareness of where food comes from and understanding of the surrounding natural environment.
- the promotion of healthy lifestyle and nutritional choices.
- facilitating learning, especially in sciences such as biology, while also encouraging the development of life skills.
- working as part of a team towards a common goal.
- and of course, it’s great fun!
It can be a joy teaching your children about growing food and working in the garden together, however as Erica over at Northwest Edible Life will testify, when it comes to kids, particuarly young ones, “they will mess your shit up”. You may turn your back for a moment and lo and behold they are stomping all over your freshly planted seedlings.
So when it comes to gardening with kids it makes sense to stick with varieties that are hardy and easy to plant but also have some fun factor. Below are some fruits and vegetables that you might want to try growing with your kids at home.
5 Fruits and Vegetables to grow and harvest at home with your children:
Bush Beans
Bush beans are easy to plant and don’t require support systems such as staking or trellising like other beans since they are compact and sturdy plants. They also develop quickly and are fairly low maintenance but do require warmth. Wait until after your last of your frost has past for the season.
Strawberries
Strawberries are a natural sweet treat! They also can thrive in containers, which means they are less likely to be Gozilla’d by your children stomping through the garden. Harvesting the Strawberries can be a fun activity for kids, but wait until they are a rich red colour before picking for the sweetest outcome.
Cherry Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes are fantastic for beginners and those with little time on their hands. They are also sweeter than traditional varieties and happen to come in a convenient snack size – which often leads to many of them not making it to the kitchen as they get gobbled up as a quick treat.
Cherry tomatoes do best with a trellis or other support system they can use to climb up. They’re normally grown in the summer months as they require warmth and a good amount of sunlight to grow.
Cabbage
While your kids might not be cry out for cabbage, it can still be a great option to grow with kids, particularly the larger varieties. Your kids, and possibly yourself, can marvel at the massive size some cabbages can reach in a relatively short period.
There are many varieties of cabbage including those which can stand up to winter weather such as Savoy Red. So if you’re looking for something to grow with the kids in the cooler months cabbage might be the pick!
Potatoes
Ready for a treasure hunt? Head to the potato patch! Yanking the ready potato harvest from the ground is bound to be an entertaining activity for the kids.
Wait until the last frost has past before getting started on a potato crop. It’s best to use seed potatoes for growing your own as they will likely yield larger crops and have less issues with disease. To get starting planting your potatoes, dig a trench about 30 – 40cm wide and 20cm deep in well prepared soil. Place your seed potatoes around 20 – 30cm apart and fill in your trench.
In the first five weeks of growth continually cover the potato shoots when they begin to peer through to the surface with soil from each side of the tench. This process is known as ‘hilling up the crop’ and provides the potatoes with a loose mound of soil in which to grow.
You can also grow potatoes using a no dig method as shown in this short clip from Gardening Australia:
You can learn more about Food Revolution Day at their website: http://www.foodrevolutionday.com/
Already growing at home? Be proud of your home grown food! Share your home grown food efforts with us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using the hash tag #growityoself