Episode 057. Kitchen Gardening with Children
Bailey Van Tassel talks all things kids in the kitchen garden, using her experience as a mother of three. Bailey started gardening when her first son was eight months old and walks you through her top four categories of children and gardening. There’s the overall engagement in nature, gardening tasks and jobs, activities and crafts, and then allowing your kids their own dedicated space. Join Bailey as she gives insight and advice on this. Listen in and read the transcription for details.
082. What Living A Garden-inspired Life Means – The Garden Culture Podcast with Bailey Van Tassel
Bailey Van Tassel: Welcome back to the Garden Culture Podcast. It’s me, Bailey Van Tassel here, and today is a very, very special episode near and dear to my heart. Inspired by a workshop I just hosted, I just had about 500 people join me on my seven steps to a successful spring workshop. And when I asked everybody what their goals were in the garden this year, overwhelmingly one of the goals was to garden with kids, like parents wanting to garden and connect with their children outside and this was my primary motivation for getting started in the garden as well. So I feel like it is maybe a little bit of an area, I don’t want to say of expertise, but certainly of authority. I feel like I’m proud of the way I’ve inspired the kids to join me in the garden without totally repelling them. Yet, I realize that day may still come. And there are certainly in these early years, because my oldest is six and a half, you know, a lot of wanting to just be near mom. So whatever I’m doing, they want to be doing, which is so precious and fleeting, I’m seeing already. But I do have some tips for everybody and there are really four categories I’m going to walk you through today to help just inspire you and orient you around, get your wheels turning, so to speak, around gardening with your kids.
So let’s dive in. Number one, I would say also is children need nature. And there are these staggering statistics. This is not number one, this is a preface to number one. This is me just saying kids need to be outside. And this was a huge motivation for me was them just being in nature since we live really in the suburbs and it’s not, they can’t just go get like lost on our property, which I could as a child. But they certainly have an outdoor space and the garden felt very community based in terms of like our family community and all of us being together. So there’s this crazy statistic that children spend like less than two hours a day outdoors typically in America. And I think this accounts for a majority of children being in a traditional school setting and then coming home and like doing homework and being inside. And that is so crazy. Something we’re doing this year, it’s called 1000 hours outside. a friend of mine, her name is Ginny. she’s been leading this 1000 hours outside cause, so to speak, I think for almost 10 years, I was actually on her podcast. I’ll have to link to that below and I’m going to have her here on this podcast soon. But now more than ever, if we are feeling afraid, sad, worried about technology in our children’s lives, I feel like nature is the antidote. It is so such a safe place to play and explore and just be free.
So I have seen this in my own kids and it’s really fantastic to just watch them get bored outside and see what they do. But these prompts that I have for you are going to help you sort of shepherd the experience and help everybody get out there more. Give you a little guidance as a parent or a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle to like, I don’t know, just give you some ideas.
01. So number one, the absolute first thing I noticed with my children once they were able to walk is that they would just follow me out there. So I was seeking some solace and some alone time, but every time I went out into the garden and my peacefulness and tranquility came on, or that’s another way of saying my anxiety went away or my overwhelm went away, it’s like they could feel that shift happening. It would be like betting all my money on red and winning every time, they’d follow me out there probably within 10 minutes and be by my side. Like I said, this is around I’d say 18 months old, just walking or crawling at all up even still my six and a half year old, if they see me out there, they come out and they want snuggles or just to be near mom because I know they can feel that peaceful energy. So my number one tip is just allow that, allow them to be in your space out there.
And if you’re feeling like you need it for your mental health, of course, take the time in space you need, but you don’t always have to have something for them to do. They might just want to be near you or consider giving them some sort of a hand craft to do out there with you. So you’re sharing space and energy together, but they’re not gardening. If you feel intimidated or annoyed or anxious about them making a mess or pulling up plants or whatever, give them something non-gardening to do with their hands so that they’re still just near you enjoying the space. We have these little sewing cards that are like in the shape and style of Eric Carl’s like caterpillar books and they’ve got these big holes with these big laces and that’s such a fantastic hand craft for the kids to do when they’re at a restaurant or like in the garden with you.
So the next thing that I’ll recommend is really leaning into teaching your kids about their five senses out in the garden. And I start doing this very, very young with my babies because my first garden was at the end of a cul-de-sac and there were some trees around, but we lived in a very urban-y city environment at the time. So I would just walk around with my son in my arms and have him touch leaves and the bark on trees and describe the experience that he was having. And this is before my baby was walking or talking, but they kind of tell you when you’re a new mom, you know, just talk like narrate your life to the children. And we have very verbal kids probably because no one ever stops talking, myself included, hence why you’re listening to me on a podcast. But I feel like even now I’ve got an 11 month old and when he’s with me, it’s this, look at the smooth leaves, listen to the sound of the wind and the birds. I’ll let him taste a veggie right off the vine, like a pea, smell the flowers. So this is sort of sharing time and space in the garden in an experiential way where you’re not doing anything as much as just experiencing it.
And this goes for any, anytime, anywhere out in nature, really just narrating what’s happening because I feel like it’s very soothing to everyone involved yourself included, but it’s a way for you to get the baby included as well and like the really, really little ones. So that’s number one. This is like the gentle, if you’re just kind of feeling like there’s really nothing my kids can do, there actually is – it’s just more about presence and awareness.
02. Number two is going to be around gardening jobs. And I think people underestimate the physical capabilities of children and in America, I feel like we overestimate the emotional capabilities of children. And this is not a unique thought to me. I read this in a book. I think it was a parenting book called ‘Hunt Gather Parent’ where she talks about this. And I think that is so, so right. So in the garden, we start seeing at a really, really young age that kids can do so many things and it just takes a little bit of practice.
So the first time or two, if they’re really young, I’m going to say around two years old, you’ll need to obviously be very hands on and monitoring what’s going on. But once they get closer to three and a half, four, I find that the kids can have independent tasks or they can take on a task in tandem with you with very strong capabilities. By the time they’re six, they can do almost everything you can do; and it’s just a matter of if they want to and how clean and/or tidy you want your space to be and how well your children follow directions, which I realize can change moment to moment. But I wanted to give you an idea of some of the jobs that I assign my kids. The caveat here for me, and this is a personal choice, because I do not require any of these tasks as chores. We do do chores for our kids, but I do not make the actual tending of the garden a chore because I don’t want it to feel like a chore. Weeding is the exception and we will do something and I’m not saying this is right or wrong or good or bad, Lord knows, not a parenting expert. But I will have the kids if they need some time to think about something or they’re having a hard time, a consequence often will be you need to go pull ten weeds, you need to go be outside, you need to pull ten weeds and you’ll show them to me. So weeding is a chore and it’s also a consequence sometimes and that is just a personal thing that we do.
Everything else is not mandatory and typically what it takes is just me going out and starting the job and then they want to help. Again, because they’re used to following me out into the garden and having me enjoy that time. I set a precedent of when you come and follow me out, you’re a part of my world and I welcome you into it and so as they get older, I find they still do that and then they want to mimic the tasks I’m doing. So we’re kind of building on the skills and experience. So some of the jobs we do and I’m going to try to think back to the ages of my kids. Starting around twenty months, like almost two, my daughter was able to collect Nasturtium seeds or seed pods from plants and put them into a basket or she would follow me around and simply hold things – hold my travel, hold my basket, hold a tray of plants that are going to go in. At that age as well, they can typically pick flowers and harvest things that are loosely don’t matter that much. I’m not going to have her like cutting a squash off the vine, but we’re picking herbs and flowers and maybe peas.
Then we move into things like catching and removing bugs. So we call ’em yucky pillars, but any cabbage loopers they know to go out and catch those; they get grubs, hornworms, all of that. I’ve thought about rewarding them monetarily for them, but for now they’re willing. So when they become less willing, I’ll probably reward them for pest, pest control by giving them like a dime per caterpillar or something like that. Then once they get closer to like four, they can start harvesting dinner. So I’ll have them go out and get three cucumbers for dinner or pick five kale leaves for soup and then they bring it in and help me cook it. And nine times out of ten, they want to eat it because they harvested it and we grew it together.
I will say again, not trying to pat myself on the back. I’m not a perfect parent. like by any means. But the kids eat well and I swear it’s because we grow them and they’re so familiar with the food. Also, they eat what we eat. I do not make separate meals for my kids and we always, always, always put a vegetable on their plate. I heard something like it takes 50 exposures oftentimes for a child to try and like something new and that has certainly been an approach we’ve taken where it’s like the purple peas are going to sit on your plate if you don’t eat them, I’ll either collect them off the plate and save them for later or we’ll compost them or whatever.
Anyways, back to jobs. Starting around four, I’ll have kids water as well and they can start to prune and pinch things, four or five years old depending on your approach. I like to teach my kids how to safely use tools with me. So I am watching them, I am helping them and I am supervising until they get to a point where they really understand and listen when it’s time to be serious with our tools. So I would say around age six for my son, younger for my daughter, just for compliance reasons, is when they really start to have some respect for the tools and they know how to use them properly and they know that I’m serious when I say to put them down and they can’t chase a sibling or the dog with hedge trimmers. That’s closer to an age six skill in our house.
I like to give a lot of autonomy so six is a little bit more, it’s a little bit more pause and impulse control there, just slightly. So the kids can also…I would say around age four start sowing seeds and getting really good because they’ve got better dexterity there, like poking the holes and putting the seeds in and sort of keeping track of them. We also…I will let the kids obviously fully transplant, dig the hole, put the plant in, move the soil back in and then also help me spread amendments. So it’s really just taking all of your gardening tasks and making them very bite size and being very direct with, okay, this goes here and this is how you do it – showing it once and then letting them try. Practice, practice, practice. I feel like is my lesson in parenting as well. If I want my kid to have the capability of being able to leave the park when I ask, I have to practice them leaving the park when I ask. This has been something that is hard for me to do sometimes because I forget we’re practicing. We don’t already know this skill and sometimes it takes longer than you want, but you get there.
So with gardening, it’s the same thing all about practice and having loose expectations. You want this to be fun and positive and so when things start getting out of control or we’re pulling out plants or we’re cutting plants where we’re not supposed to, I try to stay very calm and very regulated and say, we’re not harvesting right now or that’s not ripe, that’s not ready – time to take a break from the garden and go play and do something else. Now it’s mom’s turn to be in the garden. I’m not going to get too much into all of the weeds on that cause again, this is now getting into like parenting approaches, but I try to keep a really strong delineation between like, we’re enjoying our time in the garden and treating it with respect and like this is our garden. And then when things start getting out of hand as sometimes they just do, kids are kids, and I’ve had my kids very innocently when they’re young pull out so many plants, harvest things that aren’t ready, taste things that they shouldn’t, cut things by accident and I try never to get actually mad, but I really do want them to have respects like there’s no walking in the garden beds. That’s not funny. That’s a no.
So I do enforce boundaries in the garden, but I try to keep things light as well because my goal is that it really is an enjoyable space and it is a space for them to feel welcome. And I will find now when the kids go outside they are very drawn to that space. They’re walking around, they’re looking at things and they’re naturally engaging with the garden in a way that we’ve done in play together.
03. And that will lead me to number three – which is crafts and activities in the garden. And this I would say I probably should have reversed the order, but I started doing some like fun activities in the garden. I guess alongside gardening jobs, it happens very naturally, but this is a way if you feel like your kids are not that into it. Naturally, maybe doing some nature crafts and activities will help make it a little bit more fun so that they then begin to have fun in the garden. So I’m just going to give you a few ideas. There are literal books written on the subject. I’m going to link some in the show notes that I really, really like. There’s one in particular I love and I forgot to snag it from a bookshelf to see what it’s called, but it’s so good. So read the show notes today. But I still do this with the kids I’ve been doing it since they were really little and you just sort of ramp up the level of experience to match their age. So the level of difficulty ramps up but one of the things I’ve done since they were really little is scavenger hunt.
So first I would go and harvest a bunch of flowers and tape them onto a piece of cardboard or like snap them underneath a rubber band and then have them like it’s like a seek and find go find the same thing from the garden to match what’s on their little cardboard. So I would pull let’s say a calendula, a chamomile and a dianthus bloom and then they would go out and find the matching flower and collect that and like walk around the garden and show me and we can do it together or independent or a mixture of both. As they get older, we’ve moved on to full scavenger hunts where they are like clues written out that they have to go find like something mean, something green, something makes you want to scream and they’ll go find like a tomato hornworm, I’m just making riffing, I’m making up right now.
But I also will sometimes just yesterday did this where I said okay there are two new things in the garden that I want you to find – one is called a rose hip, what do you think it is? What are this and that and then I gave them clues or we’ll do like you’re getting hot, you’re getting cold, you’re warm and they’re walking around. The other one was a bug snug. I said I made a bug snug and it’s only halfway done and you need you guys to help can you find it, what do you think it is? So then they went out and they found this new little bug snug – like a bug hotel where I had made like a little teepee out of sticks and then started filling it in with sticks and reeds and clippings for bugs to go into and so we talked about what is a bug snug? Why do we have it? How do we make it? So as they’re getting older, it’s playful, but we’re having conversations as well and this is where I just feel like that is the juice like that is the magic and it just keeps them interested and excited and then if they wander off they’re not into it, they want to go play, let it be.
Often I feel like it just brings everyone out to the garden and then I come to find they just want to stay there like “what’s next, what else do you want to do? Do you have any jobs for us today?” That kind of thing. So scavenger hunt slash like seek and find is great. Sometimes it would be themed like okay go find five things that are red or what are six things that you can eat? You know just little things like that and I feel like sometimes if the kids follow me out and they don’t want to help and they want to be near me but they’re being kind of like I’m trying to get stuff done, you know. And I’m trying to include them but it’s also like now turning into this like chore, this is when I’m like okay I need to transplant these, do you want to help me? No? Okay, then go find three green things and report back and then we’ll chat about it. Just buying yourself pockets of time.
Maybe this sounds like it’s going to make gardening like less exciting for you but you know we just oscillate between like this being a productive time for me and then this being a welcome time with the kids. So you choose that. But okay anyways the next thing we’ve loved doing our flower weavings so I’ve seen these done on a large scale. I really want to build one where you get like two I would say like maybe even like 10 foot bamboo poles or like you know actual big log-y sticks and drive them into the ground and use string to create like a weaving and then the kids go and find long flowers or pieces of grass and weave them up vertically through what you’ve created. And this is something I feel like you can be adding to all the time that creates something really beautiful. But you can do it with cardboard and twine as well. So I’ve taken like a big piece of cardboard and I wind twine around it kind of you know in like a checkerboard shape and then they go out and collect things and make a nature weaving, so that’s a fun craft to do.
I’ve also hidden their toys out there. I, you know, they sell like big bags of dinosaurs or we’ll do like for a birthday party maybe a little goody bag for kids and you get left with a bunch of extra stuff or you like get weird stocking stuffers, I don’t know. I collect a bunch of small toys and then count them, hide them and tell the kids okay there are 10 dinosaurs hidden in the garden and you have to go find them and they love this game and then what I’ll do since I’ve got multiple kids they take turns hiding them for each other and then that buys me time to like go drink my coffee and look through seed catalogs or whatever.
Another craft that we tend to do each season is make seed bombs and we will get some clay, honestly I can just get some like really hard clay soil from our ground in a spot in the garden or the yard that’s not being tended to and make this, or you can just you know use a lot of top soil mix with native soil or go buy craft clay. But we will get that really really wet and then gather a bunch of seeds like wildflower seeds and make these clay balls with the seeds in them. It’s really that simple, you just like dump the seeds in and make a ball shape and let it dry in the sun and then you throw the seed bombs like out into nature. I will have to give a warning here please choose flowers that are native to your area be responsible with that don’t be like using morning glory seeds to throw around that are going to be taking over, make sure you’re getting like native wildflower seeds or you know like for us here like poppy seeds or something so wherever we throw these it is a conscientious move. I also am not advocating you go throw seeds around in public spaces. I feel like knowing the state of our country and certainly the state of California, that’s probably illegal or something ridiculous.
So just be conscientious, we usually just throw them on our own property I’ve got like a slope or we’ll do like a hike out in the back part of where we live that’s pretty wild and we’ll do wildflowers and it’s very harmless. But making these little mud seed bombs is like so easy the kids love getting dirty and it’s really fun to then let them dry it’s a multi-part, right? You’re letting them dry then you’re collecting once dry, you’re going on a nature walk and you’re throwing them out in nature which leads to a whole other category of this is now moving into like nature with kids but I also love to do nature hikes were were like collecting leaves or we’re scouting for animals or things like that. So so much to do, but this takes you now beyond the garden and into nature to have those conversations.
So for more ideas for activities like I said in the show notes I’ve got some books around it, there like endless beautiful incredible gardening activities but I also have a gardening with kids ebook that I wrote that is over a hundred pages with book recommendations activities and whatnot and it’s actually free inside the kitchen garden society membership right now which is at the kitchen garden society dot com, my monthly membership and I believe it’s for sale in my stan store for like twelve dollars so I’ll have a link to that in the show notes too and that really guides you through a much more deep dive on like talking through character building exercises tons of activities to be doing things like that. So not trying to shamelessly plug but just want to give you like more places to go with this.
04. So number four in sort of gardening with kids is giving them their own space or some sort of garden autonomy and this season it’s going to look even more advanced than it has in the past but one idea if you don’t have the ability to give in their own bed is to get them their own pot or like a little like herb garden like a windowsill herb garden size vessel or like rope off or use wood sticks to create a little square foot or maybe three square feet in your garden for them to have that’s just for them and children love this and they love going to the store and picking out seeds or plants or bulbs. I’m gonna have my kids choose seeds from the catalog this year but then they get to plant it and tend to it all on their own, you can choose the level of autonomy here and the level of like reminding that you will do maybe this is something where you’re like it’s on you you remember to water you know or do you want to create a schedule for yourself, do you want mommy to remind you do you want to just go on instinct like you get to decide this or your kid can dictate it for you it totally, it’s so so personal but this year I’m going to basically have the kids kind of alongside me as I’m choosing plants and why I pick them and then give them the free reign to do that as well and give them the opportunity to choose an herb, flowers, veggies whatever they want.
I’m going to start introducing the idea of like themed gardens so like pizza garden or a medicinal garden something we do in an activity is like matching an herb to your ailments so this is like way entry entry entry into herbalism and obviously you have to have a talk with your kids about things that are not edible but in my garden a rule of thumb I have is I do not plant anything inedible or toxic in where there are edible plants. So my garden raised beds that’s for you have to be able to consume everything there just so it’s easy for us to manage and the kids really can understand it’s a safe space for them. But we’ve also had a lot of conversations around foraging and things that are not safe to eat and the dangers of that and really understanding that, so do that with your kids. Have those conversations and it’s similar I feel like to the sex talk where it’s a drip drip drip so drip drip dripping all the time information about, you know, herbalism and plants and gardening and what’s safe and what’s healthy name for food all of it it’s all practice it’s all drip drip so I use that in the garden too. But I think giving children their own space to play in their own tools so that we can really let them be autonomous and let them play and then you can also gauge their level of interest like maybe they’re just not into it.
Or maybe they’re – I have so many friends like “I don’t garden I have a black thumb” which by the way is not real, but they’re like I’m not into it but my kids are begging me to garden like what do I do? So obviously now they can listen to this podcast episode but no I always tell them like just give them a little space to play, go buy some seeds, follow the instructions on the back, let it be self-guided maybe it’s a one and done and you’ve wasted 30 bucks or maybe it’s something that you guys come to find you like to do together. Maybe you realize your child, when they’re self-motivated, has a ton of focus and discipline like it’s a win either way in my opinion, so that’s what I recommend, but don’t take it too seriously. I think the idea of getting like one 18 inch terracotta pot and a small bag of like organic potting soil is good enough if your plants will grow get them some transplants or some seeds if they want – choose seeds that germinate quickly is just a pro tip, so like radishes for example where they’re going to see sprouts come up like in three days or even micro greens that is so so exciting to children and they love that.
So yeah, that kind of brings me to the end I again have just so many fun ideas for getting kids in the garden and even as I’m talking I’m like oh my god I should have told you guys about like making lavender sachets or they can harvest the lavender and put them in little baggies for sweet dreams under their pillows like so many ideas so if you guys want more ideas just email me message me let me know but I hope this inspires you to get out there with the kids and just gives you some ideas to make it feel more natural and just more enjoyable so I love you all thank you for being here if you’re enjoying the podcast please leave me a review and subscribe and share with a friend. I am so grateful that you’re here and I’m just so excited for what’s to come so I will see you guy at the next episode I hope you have a great day!
Show Notes & Links
Gardening with kids e-book: Garden Home School Curriculum
Gardening Together with Children: Amazon
To join the monthly gardening membership: The Kitchen Garden Society
This Episode is sponsored by Calzuro! For info on Calzuro and their wonderful clogs: www.calzuro.com and use code “BAILEY” for 15% off!