Kristi,
At there age just having them around the garden is enough. They will come to appreciate it later. If you work in the garden, they will work in the garden, but probably much later in life. If you force them to garden then they most certainly will be turned off. Kids have incredible powers of observation - they are not missing what you are doing. They will learn from what you do. Don't preach, teach by example.

Have fun,
Dan

I agree with Dan. Let the kids PLAY in the garden. I am a teacher, and the easiest way to get kids to hate anything is to MAKE them do it. Let them watch you enjoy yourself in the garden. One thing I did with my 'little one' was to give her a bag of onion sets every spring. She would plant them everywhere- neighbor's yards included. We had nice neighbors. Some sets grew, some didn't. I liked the ones I found in the flower beds. She would put them there so the flowers wouldn't be lonely.

You must remember that play is the WORK that children do every day. Watch your children play. Observe what they can learn in undirected but monitored times. Teach them how to be gentle when they explore the plants in the garden.

2 and 3 yr olds would enjoy a garden full of flowers, shapes, and scents. Try petunias, pansies, daylilies, marigolds, mint, herbs, scented geraniums. The list is long.

I find it really, really scary that parents feel pressured to find curricula and set up lessons for babies. After having taught for 30 years, I have learned more from kids than I taught them. Two of the most important lessons I have learned: 1. Kids learn in spite of what we do to them; 2. If you enjoy learning new things they will too.

I did much the same things that you did with your little ones, plant and water seeds. When the fun and excitement wore off I extended play areas into my garden. My grand daughter and I made a scare crow out of one of those 3' tall teddy bears. We dressed him up in jeans, shirt and a flannel jacket. I gave him gardening gloves to cover his paws. On one arm he holds a basket of pine cones for the squirrels and on the other arm the basket is full of bird seeds.
My grand daughter who is 2 and a half adopted him as "Bear" and is her buddy. She feeds him Cheerios and tries to pour juice in his mouth.
I put a child's wooden table and 2 little chairs out in the vegetable patch and we have "tea" there. After tea we color on paper and make flower "scribbles".
I take her for walks every day in her buggy and we "look at neighbours's gardens." I make her a "garden tiara" of fresh cut flowers from my beds and cover them with florist wire. She loves it when someone comments on how lovely her floral ring looks in her hair. She shouts when she sees something that catches her eye, stops to wave to dogs and cats and calls butterflies "garden angels". Her favourite garden belongs to an elderly gentleman who has his vegetable patch full of different "plastic farm animals", she thinks this is a park.
We put her "dried bread crusts" out in the backyard for the birds. She loves to feed them and they don't even take notice of Bear anymore.
We made streamers of metalic ribbons tied to tin foil plates and they blow in the wind. I have a small pond with goldfish and she used to use a bamboo pole (without a fishing line) to try to catch fish. Now she has a plastic fishing rod that she uses. In the summer I let her stand in the pond as its not very deep and I tell her the fish will kiss her toes and she laughs.
Build a "house with giant sunflowers around a table" to play in. Another idea is a wire fencing tunnel covered with vines. Its great to play hide and seek there or run through the tunnel.
Plant things they can pick and eat like strawberries, peas, bean, cherry tomatoes, raspberries, blueberries. My little nieces love to come and pick mine. One claimed my strawberry patch and the other thinks she owns the beans and peas. They take home plastic bags full of peas and beans and tell their mom that the ones from the store aren't as good as "Auntie Joyce's".
Pumpkins are great for later on in the fall. Gourds are great to dry and make winter crafts. Leaves are great to make rubbings with paper over them and using the side of a crayon. Frame them by gluing flowers around the edges. Put the pictures up on the fridge. Drying flowers and making crafts is another good activity especially when it rains. Let them cut pictures out of flower catalogues and paste the pictures on paper (we do this one in the garden outside). Besides I order catalogues every year. The pictures in the catalogues are also good for making Toile crafts......and on and on.
Its more that just being in the garden, its about nature and "enjoying nature". I hope this helps.
Gramma Brown

Well I've got no kids of my own but I have spent some time with kids in gardens. Here are a few favourites. YOur children may be a bit young, but maybe this will help.

1. Edible flowers. Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) and pansy have edible flowers and this seems to appeal to many kids, although yours may be too young. Usually they need to have developed the mental block that you can't eat pretty flowers to enjoy breaking the rule! But you need to get the message about only eating the right things (ie what yoy say they can eat, or else they will get a tummyache!). ONly do this if you are confident that they can obey the rules on what to eat and not to eat.

2. Rose thorns. You break off a rose thorn and press the base to the bridge of your nose and it sticks. Then pretend to be rhinoceroses.

3. Smelly plants. There are so many neat smells in the garden. Not all of them are nice, but that can be just as interesting!

4. hairy plants. Stachys byzantina and mullein (Verbascum) have amazing hairs. You can pat them just like a kitten but they don't run away...

5. Garden storytelling. Read stories outside, or even make them up. Invent a story set in your garden where there are weird and wonderful creatures hiding in the bushes.

6. Build huts under trees. Fresh lawn clippings make great walls! The lovely grassy smell...

7. Attention. It's one of those things isn't it, you think you should have time to do your own thing, but the children want to do their thing, and they want you to do it too. getting them to enjoy gardening may not be the issue, they are probably trying to figure out how to get you to enjoy what they want to do in the garden!

I can remember when I was little that the only thing my mother allowed me to do in the yard was pick weeds!! I absolutely hated the garden! Looking back, I realize my mother should have given me my very one garden and bought flowers and plants already grown for me to plant along with seeds...Your children will enjoy your garden, just give them some time...they do seem a little young. Let them play and let them plant as well...

I, also, don't have kids but spend time with kids in gardens. What a great way to teach children the lessons of nurture and stewardship! All the suggestions above are good ones, especially the ones that recognize the age of your children. Two and three year olds have short attention spans - as they grow, they'll be "ripe" for more and different kinds of garden fun. One thing that very young children enjoy is music. I have a few garden songs that I sing along with garden activities. It's good for the little ones, because a song lasts about 2 minutes, just right for a short garden project. After a short project, they're ready for free play. If they are playing around the garden while you work, even if they aren't "gardening", per se, it will become part of the geography of their childhood, and they will keep loving it as they grow.

There are tons of children's tapes, as you must well know...pick a few songs that are appropriate either because they deal with gardens or the outdoors, or because they have a rhythm that works with a certain task. You can have a digging song, a planting song, a picking song, etc. If you aren't personnaly musically inclined, you could get a portable tape player and take it out to the garden with you. Having a cutting garden or letting kids help pick the vegetables is another good idea. Concrete rewards really help. Nothing like being able to give Dad a flower or Grandma a tomato and saying "I did this!". Good luck!

Ditto to all that's been said before. They're not too young, though. I've been watching my two grandchildren while their parents work since they were born. I started them in the garden as soon as they were old enough to sit in my lap and hold a trowel, before they were able to walk. It was all very unstructured. Most of the them they were just playing around the yard while I puttered in the garden beds. I did most of my gardening sitting on a box or the ground so my lap was (and still is) handy for little ones to sit in for a minute to talk, hug, sooth a bobo or so they could "help" Today, they're six and seven. They know the names of many of the plants, the proper way to cut flowers, what they can and cannot eat. On the rare occassions when one accidently steps on a plant they're always sure to come and let me know to see if we can save it. They've accompanied me many times when I've given walking lecture tours to people who come by and want to know about the gardens. My granddaughter wants to lead a class for other children on how to grow things from seed.

Plant lots and lots of flowers for cutting. I live in an old neighborhood with sidewalk and lots of people walk by everyday. Any child that goes by gets to select a flower.

You can bet my grandchildren are watching all of this. They still only work at gardening in small snatches of time but that's how they do everything. And it does not matter what you are doing, at that age they want you as much as they can get you. So that means you only get to work in the garden in small snatches of time. I know, that's the hard part. I'll just get going on something and one of the kids will need something. The time span gets longer as they get older. When they're grown and on to other things is when you can spend more time in the garden.

A little wildlife interest wouldn't do them any harm either. Show them butterflies - maybe they can pick out butterfly shapes? Lovely wriggly helpful earthworms. Perhaps you have some nice birds coming to the garden - birdfood and birdnests at the appropriate season.
My neighbours' children love to watch me in the garden putting in flowers. They gather round to see what's happening. I was appalled to find they didn't realize that lettuce could be grown from seed in the garden! My Uncle Jim had a terrific vegetable garden. Modern children only see food in a supermarket, they don't know where it comes form.
Let your children know about parks, farms, woodland (I used to scramble up the local trees) even wasteland covered with weeds. Children love unclutivated areas - if you can find any!

It is not important if they want to garden or not -- let them watch you, and/or let them do something else. Tell them what you are doing and why you like it. They will appreciate gardening later. My daughter has her own parsley in a pot that she can graze on any time she wants. She's being remarkably patient with "her" strawberries, and is generous in sharing them with us.

For kids this age, gardening has lots of appeal: water, dirt (mud), worms and food. But it is frustrating for them, because they can't do things "right". Seeds must be planted at proper depth, watering must not be too enthusiastic, etc. If you can't "let go" and let them do it their way, then you will turn them off.

And tell lots of stories. Kids are fascinated by how things work. Worms, for example. Worms make good (temporary) pets because they move slowly and there are lots of them. I told my daughter about worms when she noticed them, she named "her" worm "Squiggly Wiggly". Now, whenever a worm turns up in the garden I say, "Look, here's Squiggly Wiggly come to play with you". Squiggly Wiggly was the star of several bedtime stories, where he and my daughter went to visit the King of the Worms in his underground castle, and had lots of other adventures. Along the way, she learned what worms eat, how they poop, whether they can see and hear, what they do in the dirt (have parties, have babies), how they help gardens, whether they like swimming, and who eats them. You will be amazed how much they can learn if you mix real facts in with imaginative stories.

I have an 18 month old and a 3 year old and I have been learning by trial and error what works for them. Interestingly, my planned attempts at trying to teach them something usually leave them uninterested and me frustrated. For instance, my 3 year old and I planted a sunflower house together. I explained to her what was going to happen to those seeds we were putting into the ground. I think she "got it" but she was a little bored. Now, when I remind her about the seeds we planted weeks ago and show her how big the plants are getting, she still shows little interest. (Maybe she'll like it more when the flowers appear.)

My most effective strategy seems to be to let them explore on their own and to take advantage of teachable moments. If I find a worm, I yell excitedly to both of them and they come running to look at it. If I'm weeding, I let them pull weeds too. But only if they want to. They also have a sandbox and wading pool nearby to keep them busy. Anytime I'm working in the garden, I can give them a trowel and a safe spot to dig and they are quite happy. It was very easy to teach them only to walk on the paths and now very few plants get trampled. A big part of successful gardening with kids this age (especially my 18 month old, who doesn't understand as much) is not expecting perfection. My younger daughter is very likely to step on anything I've just planted and she's very good at pruning plants by ripping off stems, leaves and flowers (especially flowers!). I try not to let this bother me and figure that any plant she has stepped on or "pruned" will be that much stronger if it lives. I let my 3 year old dump small amounts of sand from her sandbox on my plants (she tells me she's feeding them). I know it won't hurt them, so I let her do a few scoopfuls and then tell her that's enough. She also loves to help me water with the hose (we both hold it and I tell her where to point it).

An important point is that I find it very difficult to get serious work done when my kids are with me. So I prefer to do major digging, weeding or planting when they are sleeping or when my husband can watch them. I save very easy stuff for when they are out in the yard with me (light weeding, some pruning, harvesting), otherwise I find it too difficult to get anything done because at this age they demand so much attention.

I think there's also something to be said for planting things that kids will like. We had a great year for peas, and both children loved to stand back at the garden and pick peas and eat them right off the plants. I didn't worry so much about the flowers that were picked off, or about the peas that were picked but then thrown in the grass and never eaten (I just picked them up and rinsed them off). Now we are harvesting carrots, and I let my 3 year old pick a carrot for her and one for her sister that we then rinse off and they eat with the top on. Cherry tomatoes will be ready soon, and my older daughter loved eating them last year. Again, try not to worry too much about tomatoes or carrots that are half eaten and then tossed in the grass. If anything is worth saving, I just take it inside and cut up what can still be used.

You may also consider putting in plants that attract birds or butterflies. I've done this a bit with birds and the kids love it. Good luck!

When my daughter was real little I used to make a bean pole teepee. She loved hiding in there while I was gardening and eating stringbeans.
The seeds were big enough for her to handle and poke into the soil. Didn't matter if the vines were covering the stakes yet or not. Some sunflowers at the doorway completed the picture.
I always include her in my stuff and still do. One thing she likes to do is take one of those seed catalogs that come in hoards in the winter and sit with me and circle all the plants she thinks are neat. I always order one or more for her to try.
She still doesn't hang with it very long but I'm certain that she will always be a gardener now. She even has brushed pollen on my daylilies after wondering how the two parent plants might look mixed. This year she even asked me about the various parts on flowers who's parts aren't obvious. She's hooked even if she doesn't know it yet.

When I was a little girl my grandmother had a huge garden. My brother and I had a sandbox under a tree nearby so she could work in the garden while we played in the sandbox.

Now I have a small garden and my husband has his tractors and we have a four year old of our own. My son loves to water and mimic the grown-ups. I just bought him a set of kid size garden tools. He loves to use the regular size rake and hoe but they are too cumbersome for him. Plus he's a boy and loves to play in the dirt anyway. The above garden craft/suggestions are great and I think I'll use a few myself this summer!

This is a wonderful forum! This is the first time I have visited this particular one. I love the bean hut/house idea. I saw it on a website this summer, but never got around to it. I have 2 girls, 6 and 3. Both love to help in the garden, but as lots of you have said just in spurts! I feel just like Kristi! That is my story exactly! I feel like my 6 year old sometimes resents my gardening. Almost everything in my garden is new this year and I have gone whole hog into it like everything I do. This spring and summer especially I have spent gobs of time on my gardens and have neglected the house and the kids. My 3 year old is constantly asking me to swing with her and push her. I try to take many breaks and play with her for a little bit. Most of the time they enjoy helping when they want to. I have roses and grew Cosmos. My daughter grew Dahlias. We made some pretty boquets (sp?) with those and butterfly bush cuttings for their teachers. They were very proud of them! I think they would love the bean house and tunnels next year. Also I love the sunflower scarecrow idea. They are going to have a blast with that! I can hardly wait until next spring to get them started! They also love bugs and worms. I have to try to be lenient with that. They love to get the worms and put them in jars along with butterflies, grasshoppers and anything else that strikes their fancy. I have tried to teach them it's O.K. to hold and look for a little bit, but that the worms are good for the plants. Anytime they get a grasshopper or snail, I praise them! We had about 5 different kinds of butterflies this year. Some of my favorite were the black ones with blue trim and black with yellow. Truely beautiful! They were not allowed to catch these ones! Only the yellow and orange ones! Thanks guys for all the great suggestions! By the way, my kids love the idea of propigating, another thing I have gone whole hog into! They helped me strike alot of butterfly cuttings. I e-mailed Pepper directly, but I'll ask everyone too. My girls would both love a set of real looking and working gardening tools for kids. I only have one little shovel and they are constantly fighting over it.
Cindy

After two kids, I'm still learning. Seems when a project is important to me, then it fails the most! Often I try VERY simple, short term projects. Thomas, the 5 year old, decided he wasn't my "Gardening Buddy" and for a few weeks this spring, and I found him watching TV WAY too long. I had to put my foot down and say," You just get to be with me outside." We brought Legos out onto a blanket and we were at least outside togather. I have noticed though, that he is more aware and gentle with nature than many of his "non-gardening friends", so dispite my frustrations and supposed failings, he is picking up important concepts about Nature, animals, plants....

I too have a Habitat/Wildlife Garden and think this is a good thing to include. Something that worked last year was getting H20 to a strawberry pot right by the front door. (for visability and daily checking and eating by lovely grubby fingers!!!)

I would suggest being aware of what They are into and going with the flow. Thomas is great at denuding a perfectly pretty flowering plant and being all proud. I have to fight back the tears and tell him how lovely the stubs look!

I grew up among subsistance farmers in a remote area. I do not remember at what age I was exposed to whatever but among my early memories were a big green worm. My grandmother would take me to the garden each day, perhaps more than once a day, to help her pick this big green worm off something. (If I were to see the worm today I am sure it would not seem so large but it was fascinating back then.)

Yipes stripes, please don't allow Thomas to think that it is OK to rip off all the parts of a plant you have worked to keep alive. The stubbs don't look lovely. He has damaged the poor thing. He needs to know that he did something that was wrong. Compliments for damaging things leads to wanting compliments for more damage.

Children learn from their mistakes. Thomas made a mistake denuding the plant. He needs to know that. Yes, in a nice way, but he needs to know. Going with the flow is ok for some things, but never for damage.

I know I sound like a grump, and sometimes I am. I have taught for 30 years, and I really love kids. No, I don't think of myself as a terribly strict disciplinarian. I am teaching the children of former students, and they WANT me to be "as tough as you were with me". The scariest kids I work with are the ones who don't realize they have been told 'no' or 'don't' and that they have responsibility and their actions have consequences.

I think it is wonderful that you work so diligently with your children. More parents should be as involved. Keep instilling a love for the outdoors in Thomas.
Jan

We made our kids a large planter box when they were around 3 or 4. Each spring they'd pick out their cherry tomato plant and some flowers to put oround the outer edge. I'd assist them in planting it and they'd water it and harvest the tomatoes when they were ready. My oldest grew a small garden up to the age of about 11, then the approaching teen years steered her interests in another direction. I hope that she'll go back to it sometime in her life. She still enjoys the flowers on her miniature roses, but she doesn't like to take care of them. My 8 year old still enjoys growing things. She has her little plot of land that she plants things in each year.
I wish you the best in planting that seed in your kids.

I gardening with both my children ages 4 and 10. They both started helping at about 2. Lucky for me they both fell into gardening without having to be coerced. But, I can tell you what gets them excited about a new project. They both have their own little gardens. Their space for whatever they want. We go the the nursery and while I am looking for new plants, so are they. We walk around saying, "I like that one," or "that one is very pretty." Then they usually ask if they can have this one or that, if there choice won't work, I tell them why. We have gotten some interesting new additions that way. They seem to like it best when its there own.

Once we are home and gardening, I guide them but don't help unless asked. They both have their own little tools. I show them how to remove them from the pots carefully and gently. I let them dig the holes. Really I am only there if they need me.

To make it more interesting, you can pick up little plastic animals and create different seens with them out in the garden. The kids can use pebbles to make watering holes for their animals, and create houses out of sticks. The plants are their jungle, or the farm or their forest.

And if you want one more gardening activity to do with the children and you don't mind a mess, you can purchase the terracotta paint and let them paint their own flower pots and let them choose their ouw flowers to go in them. This happens to be a great mothers day or fathers day gift as well.

Ok, my two cents took a lot longer then it should have.

My all time favorite childrens book is "The Gardener" by Sarah Stewart. I almost cry every time I read it.
My kids have enjoyed gardening in their own little casual way. Last summer my son who was then 6 had less interest than when he was younger. He would want to go in and watch TV. I'd let him go in but not watch TV, so I wasn't making him garden. One simple thing is I'll ask them to go out and pick cerain things for dinner while I'm cooking.

When my children were as young as yours are now, I dug each of them a garden about 3' x 3' square. Then I took them to the nursery and let them pick out a couple of plants of their choice. They were responsible for planting, weeding, watering and fertilizing. If their garden died, they learned a valuable lesson. If their garden did well, they also learned a valuable lesson about diligence and hard work.

We did this every year, and one of my sons always picked out the red and white striped petunias. Now he's grown and married and guess what he plants in his yard every year?

Another son loved to eat so he usually chose to plant vegetables. When he got older, I taught him how to start seedlings in the house. Now he's married, lives in an apartment, and has vegetables growing in window boxes.

When one of my sons was about 1-1/2 years old, I planted beets in my garden. When the time was ready to pull the beets up, I let him do it. He had so much fun that when every beet was pulled, he stood in the garden and cried his eyes out.

I took my children on walks during the summer and taught them the Latin names as well as American names of all the wild flowers and weeds that grew in our area. They loved being tested and showing me their knowledge, as we walked, talked and laughed.

Well, this is turning into a long story, but the point is that each of my six children loves to garden. Just let your children try everything and anything. Be creative! Teach them to recognize the different bird calls as you are in the garden together.

great idea with the stories in the garden. two that i'd recommend - though probably for older children:
The Secret Garden (an all-time favorite of mine)
Mandy by Julie Andrews

One thing I might suggest is never making the garden a "chore". My husband grew up with parents who made him weed and dig out thistles and as he got older, do a lot of hard work in the garden as part of his household chores and he now *hates* working in the garden - still sees it as a chore, even though he likes the eventual results and actually knows quite a lot about gardening in general. I, on the other hand, grew up amidst gardeners and it was considered their project - I would help sometimes, but it was a privilege for me - a treat - and when my attention wandered, they didn't mind me wandering off as well. I had to learn a lot of stuff from scratch when I did get interested in gardening, but now I'm a dedicated gardener who sees gardening as a treat!

My four year old son has his own plot where he picked out what he wanted to plant (it's a strange combination of daisies, a red rose, carrots, alpine strawberries and nicotiana) and helped me plant them all. He also helps me when he feels like it (he especially likes planting bulbs and dropping seeds like peas and beans into the holes) but I let him walk away when he's bored with it. He has other real chores (like feeding the dogs and picking up his toys) but I'd rather he didn't think of gardening as one of them.

My two 4-year olds are amused by some of the more fun names in the garden. Also, tactile stimulation is great -- lamb's ears, shiny hosta leaves, silky petunias, etc. The discovery is endless. And watering the plants is never a chore; rather another way for the girls to have fun with water.

Bottom line: happy gardneers bequeath a love of gardening to their children!

I have a 2 1/2 year-old son and we also struggle with working in the yard at times. IT is better this year here are some things I have done...

Let them water your containers or play with water. Drexler now tells me the flowers are crying because they are thirsty. I then give him the hose and let him have at it...last night he was right. One of my pansies was thirsty!

Get excited about things. Right now EVERY DAY when I get home from work my son asks to go pick the strawberries. We go out and usually a new one is ripe (can't wait a few more weeks). He is still working on not picking the green ones, but he'll learn.

Teach them what is yummy. Last year we planted carrots in a container and he would go out and pick a carrot out, wipe it off and eat it. Clean soil, no chemicals and hey he was eating carrots.

Teach them to love flowers. How does it smell? How does it taste. Have them help you pick out what ones to pick. Drexler and I will do this together, go into the house and put them in vases and then talk about how pretty they are. I have a small vase by my bed that he empties out every day and replaces the water in...and then the flowers. A bit of a pain, but he is learning to appreciate my yard.

Don't freak when they step on a plant, but do teach them to be nice to your plants. I have a large yard and Drex has hurt some of my plants, but we talk about how to treat them.

Teach them to watch for bugs and to be interested in them. Ants can keep a kid busy for at least fifteen minutes.

Tell yourself you will most likely not get a lot accomplished with your helpers so when you do accomplish something it feels good.

Make them an area that is all theirs.

Growing things at all is a good way to get them interested children love the magic of seeds... but 2 and 3 year olds may get lost in the process..... have them paint a few posts just of their own so they'll remember them..... terracotta or whatever and plant their seeds.... they'll like it better when they sprout..... also plants that they can eat or interesting plant like the mickey mouse plant...... children have very active imaginations and will have no trouble seeing simliarities...... fragrant plants..... especially sweet smelling ones..... forget fragrant foliage like rosemary except for maybe mint..... many of these plants are stinky to kids..... and some of them stinky to adults!!!!1 (i.e. while I use sage in cooking I do think the fresh leaves on fingers are a bit smelly)..... And play with them first!!!! Then go work in the garden...... :) Also don't ever force them to work inthe garden...... :)