Garden Adventures: An Easy Guide Growing With Children

Since moving away from city life a few years ago, we’ve prioritised time outdoors as a family. We love days out exploring, but not every adventure needs to be a full-on day trip - some of our favourite moments happen right here in the garden.

After years of watching our parents grow their own vegetables, we finally gave it a go last year and got the children involved in every step. It quickly became one of our favourite garden adventures. From spotting tiny shoots to picking our first crop, we all took great pride in what we’d grown. The children learnt patience, care, responsibility - and where food really comes from!

That said, it was very much a learning year. We planted things too close together, guessed our way through spacing, and still ended up with a jungle of tomatoes and the biggest courgettes I’ve ever seen. This year, with two new raised beds (thanks to a very handy husband), we’re taking it a little more seriously… or as seriously as you can with children involved.

Whether you’ve got a garden, a balcony, or just a sunny windowsill, here’s how we got started growing with our little ones. If we can do it, anyone can - seriously!

What You’ll Need (not much!)

• Small hand trowel & fork
• Child-sized watering can
• Peat-free compost
• Pots or a small raised bed
• Sturdy children’s wellies - for exploring the flower beds and keeping the mud exactly where it belongs: in the garden.

Keep it simple. One pot, one packet of seeds, one happy helper. Try a Brambly Trails Growing Kit for an easy win.

Easy Veg to Grow With Children

With timings, tips, and what we learned along the way.

After some advice from the keen gardeners in our family, we decided to keep it simple and start with tomatoes, courgettes and lettuce. As amateur gardeners, here’s how it went - plus some handy tips we wish we’d known!

1. Tomatoes (especially cherry tomatoes)

• When to plant: Start indoors Feb/March; plant outside May/June
• Start to finish: ~10–12 weeks
• Watering: Every 1–2 days

Handy Tips:

Tomatoes like warmth - a greenhouse or sunny windowsill is perfect to start. Once they’re sturdy, children can help move them outside into a bigger pot or bed. Loose netting helps stop wildlife nibbling the leaves and early fruit. Use long sticks and garden string to tie up the plants as they grow, this will help keep your crop under control. 

From our garden:

We got a bit over-excited and planted far too many seedlings in one bed. They grew into one giant tomato jungle. This year we’re spacing them properly, around 40–50cm between each plant, so they have room to breathe and ripen.

2. Courgettes

• Timing: May/June (or April if starting indoors)
• Start to finish: ~6–8 weeks
• Watering: 2–3 times a week.

Handy Tips:

Courgettes get big - they roughly need 1 square metre per plant for healthy growth. You can start them indoors or sow straight outside in your beds. They love water so give them a good soak a few times a week.

From our garden:

They grew incredibly well - honestly, they were enormous. From just one pack of seeds, we were picking 1–2 courgettes every couple of days. The kids loved spotting the huge yellow flowers - often the first sign something exciting is coming.

3. Lettuce

• Start to finish: ~4–6 weeks
• Watering: Light, regular watering - little and often.
• When to plant: April-July

Handy Tips:

Lettuce is a slug favourite so use wildlife-friendly pellets or netting to protect your crop. Choose “cut and come again” varieties so children can harvest a few leaves at a time and watch them grow back.

From our garden:

Lettuce caused huge excitement because the kids could actually see progress every few days, and the ‘cut and come again’ variety was perfect for snipping regularly into salads and sandwiches.

A Few Extras We Tried

Potatoes

A spur-of-the-moment attempt that grew surprisingly well. The kids loved digging for them like treasure. This year we’re planting a whole bed! The best time to plant potatoes is from March to May.  

Carrots

Ours didn’t do well at all. We’d packed too many seeds into a small pot, and it wasn’t deep enough for the roots. This year we’re trying again with more space and a deeper container.

A Little Garden Note to End On

As we head into another growing season, we’re excited to try again - a little wiser, a little better prepared, and still just as enthusiastic. What began as a simple experiment has become one of our favourite family adventures.

Growing with children doesn’t need to be perfect - just fun, simple, and full of small discoveries. Like we did, just start with something easy, enjoy the process, and celebrate every tiny shoot.

If our slightly chaotic family can grow a jungle of tomatoes and courgettes the size of small animals, you can absolutely grow something too.