I have not met a kid who didn’t like to play in the dirt. Kids are naturally curious and the wild jungle of a flower bed or patio planter is like new undiscovered territory for them.
You’ll want your kids’ first gardening experiences to be positive because their enthusiasm for future gardening endeavors will likely depend on how rewarding and enjoyable their first adventures actually are. To make this easier, I’ve made a list of some fun and easy garden plants for kids and beginners to grow.
These easy garden plants will encourage a child’s use of all five senses… to smell the flowers, feel the leaves, eat the veggies, hear the bees, and see all the different colours, patterns and shapes. So go ahead, and help make gardening exciting for your kids!
5 most rewarding and engaging easy plants for kids to grow:
- Sweet Snow Peas (easy, grow fast, fun to pick, yummy)
- Mint (easy to grow from seedlings, super yummy and smells fantastic)
- Pumpkin (easy to grow, get really big and kids love that, and can use the pumpkins at Halloween)
- Sunflowers (easy to grow, will grow taller than kids, attract lots of bees and birds)
- Nasturtium (easy to grow, beautiful bold colours, kids can eat the flowers and that’s pretty exciting!)
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12 of the best easy plants for kids to grow in your garden
There are so many great choices when it comes to deciding which plants to grow in your garden. Of course, this list isn’t comprehensive, but is only intended to outline some of the plants that I have found my kids have enjoyed the most in our own backyard garden.
You’ll notice that there’s usually some element of excitement or interaction with each of these over and above the fact that they grow well. I’ve found that it can be easier to get kids excited to head outside if there are exciting and interesting things for them to do when they’re out there.
Read More: 10 top tips for getting your kids outside
1. Snow Peas
Pea plants will easily grow from seed and quickly offer heaps of sweet green peas to eat. Keep them out of the direct hot sun and provide them with some sort of climbing support. Kids will love to pick the fat green pods and eat the peas right there in the garden.
2. Salad greens
There is an over-abundance of salad green options for the backyard gardener these days. I tend to pick a mixed pack so that we can enjoy a variety of shapes, colours, and tastes. It can be a challenge for kids to space the tiny lettuce seeds out, just pick and harvest in a way that helps open up space between the plants. If slugs are a problem, try growing these in a patio planter away from the garden plot.
…or, maybe the slugs are what your kids might love about growing salad greens!
If you’re like me and have a hard time deciding, I suggest trying a variety of greens like lettuce, spinach, kale, swiss chard, kale. Swiss chard is a favourite of mine and I sometimes plant it with my flowers because the colorful stems are so beautiful!
3. Mint
Our kids love mint plants!
They pick the leaves to chew on while outside in the yard and enjoy adding a few leaves to their water glasses for a ‘very-special-fancy’ drink.
Spend some time walking around the garden center and you’ll see there is a wide variety of mint flavors to choose from. Last year we bought pineapple mint, chocolate mint, and peppermint starter plants from the greenhouse because they all smelled so wonderful that we just couldn’t decide which one to choose. These plants will grow easily, and may even surprise you by coming back again next year (perennially) if you have milder winters.
You can even show your kids how to pick the mint and dry it for making teas when the garden is sleeping for the winter.
4. Potatoes
To be honest, I don’t find the potato plant that exciting, but our kids love to dig up and hunt for potatoes during harvest!
So, I think this is why they always choose to put a few in their own garden spaces.
Growing potatoes can be extra fun if you grow a purple or blue variety. Not only are the outsides a deep purple, but the flesh of the potato is purple too! You could have purple mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving next year!
5. Sunflowers
These giants are a must in the kids’ garden. The bees love them for pollen and the birds love when they’re in seed. Kids love them because the giant varieties can grow to be huge, towering up to 6, 7, even 10 feet!
There are numerous varieties of sunflowers to choose from.
In the fall, leave the flowers in the garden so birds can dine on their seeds or cut the flower heads off and nail them to the garden fence for squirrels to partake in as well.
6. Strawberries
Strawberry plants will spread and multiply in a garden, so you may want to keep them in their own planter or separate garden plot.
The sweet red juicy berries are a favourite of kids, also of garden critters, so make sure you pick them when they’re ready (or fence them in if needed) otherwise all the creatures in the neighbourhood will be enjoying your strawberries too.
7. Radishes
Kids will get quick satisfaction with radish seeds. The radish will sprout and grow so quickly that within a few weeks of planting, they could be biting into their very first garden crop; although, if your children are like mine, they won’t have a second bite!
Even though my kids don’t eat the radishes, their speedy growth and colour variations are exciting and a good addition to the kids’ garden as they can provide some quicker success than other seeds.
8. Pumpkins
Okay, this one needs a lot of space, but if you have the space, kids will absolutely love to grow their own Halloween pumpkins!
These squash grow easily from seed and it’s fun to watch the tendrils explore and spread over the garden. Maybe, with luck, your kids could be providing the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie along with the mashed potatoes!
You can even grow small decorative gourds or white pumpkins for Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations.
9. Nasturtium
These flowers have bright yellow and orange edible blossoms on a vigorous bushy or climbing plant. The nasturtium flower has a strong pepper taste.
Kids will enjoy adding these to salads and daring their friends to eat them.
We also love that nasturtiums attracts pollinators and hummingbirds to our garden. These are good plants for learning about seed harvesting. After the flowers have bloomed, hard round seed pods will form. Collect these pods and plant them again next year. Nasturtiums will grow easily in both the garden and in patio planters.
Source, Read More about Nasturtiums here.
10. Carrots
The frilly tops of carrots are a unique shape in the garden that kids can enjoy running their hands over and throug. However, it is the sweet surprise under the soil that kids will really love!
In fact, I’ve had the neighborhood kids raid my carrot patch on more than one occasion. They’re so eager to eat those fresh carrots that they just wipe the dirt off with their hands, run them under the garden tap, and chow down! Carrots come in a fun assortment of colours too: yellow, orange, white, and purple.
11. Cherry tomatoes
Tomatoes are generally easy plants to grow if you get them as smaller seedlings from the garden center or nursery. Some tomatoes will produce huge double fist sized tomatoes on large bushy plants. However, it’s the small cherry or grape tomato varieties that my children have enjoyed the most. These smaller tomatoes are born on smaller plants which can even be grown in patio planters.
When my little guy first started venturing into the garden I had a hard time persuading him not to eat the little green tomatoes and I would find these half eaten fruit scattered all throughout the garden.
12. Sensitive plant
I add this one because it is such a fun plant, not because we’ve grown it in our garden.
I have read that gardeners, in warmer climates, have had great success in growing these from seeds. But starting with a seedling might mean better success… or growing them inside?
These entertaining plants will fold up their leaves when touched, then slowly unfold again… leading to lots of curious finger probing and exploring.
Get the sensitive seeds (Tickle Plant) in a kit here:
I encountered these sensitive plants growing in the wild in Cuba and I couldn’t resist sitting down and playing with the plant’s sensitive leaves as well as pointing out the plant to all passers-by.
So there you have it: 12 super exciting and easy garden plants for your kids (or you) to try in your own garden. By choosing a few of these plants you and your family are sure to have some gardening success this growing season!
What a wonderful list of kid friendly garden plants! I’ve never been a fan of fresh radishes, but recently I tried some radishes that were fermented/pickled and they were delicious!
That’s interesting… pickled radishes, I’ll have to try those:) Thanks for the comment.