Gardening With and For Kids

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello, I'm Elizabeth, an obsessive backyard gardener, who might be able to offer you a couple of tips.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

And I'm Keith, a landscape consultant, and I'm also passionate about gardening.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

The one thing we both have in common is muddy boots. Thanks to the fabulous team at Wormley, Keith and I are very excited to be giving away a pack of three fabulous Wormley worm farms today. Valued at, or we're not giving it away today, next couple of weeks, valued at $165, Keith.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah, it's great, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Amazing. The Wormley Worm Farm is a compact and stylish worm farm made from plant-based materials that will fit anywhere in your home. With its clever design, it is easy, tidy, and perfect for any gardener who wants to make a big impact with small effort. Small worm farms, big impact. All you have to do to be in the running to win is visit the Wormley Instagram page at wormly.com.au. And yes, that is the Instagram page. Then find the post and picture of Keith and myself with the Wormley Worm Farm and follow and tag a friend on that post. We will then announce the winner on our Muddy Boots podcast on June the 30th. Good luck.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Lucky lucky.

unknown 1:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Today's episode was inspired by a message from one of our listeners, Catherine, whose five-year-old son is loving spending time in the garden with his mum, especially the veggie patch, where he's discovering just how exciting it is to grow and eat his own food. He's even got a little garden of his own, sprinkling seeds, watching snap dragons and sunflowers grow, and neat really taking pride in what he's created. And it got us thinking about just how powerful gardening can be for children. So today we are diving into gardening with and for kids, sharing ideas on how to get children involved, the best plants for little hands, how to create a garden they can truly connect with, and a few things you might want to avoid planting as well. Whether you're gardening with your own kids, your grandchildren, or just looking to inspire the next generation, this podcast is for you. Keith, there are so many reasons why gardening is such a valuable activity for children. What are some of those reasons?

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Well, oh, you've got a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little thing that I printed off. And it's uh this is from um an organization called Rural Sprout. And it's not an Australian um organization, this is actually an American organization, and I just wish we had someone in the rural parts of Australia who would actually jump on and have a look at what that what they do, which is fabulous. But there's this wonderful, wonderful um quote that they've put on here that uh I just thought was just so good for what we're going to be speaking about today. And it says this there are kids in this country who have never seen a strawberry plant, never watched a tomato turn red, never pulled a carrot out of the ground, and that's not a small thing. That's a broken connection to the most basic human experience there is. And I think that is just sensational. That says it all.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

What are the reasons why it's such a valuable activity? Apart from that, what are some of the reasons that you can think of?

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Well, apart from letting children know exactly where their food comes from, um I I can't think of anything else that's as as important as that. You know, people it's it's it's working with the soil, it's getting your hands in the dirt, it's it's transferring the good microbes that are in that soil back into your into your body. You know, that's another great thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Do a bit while you're at it. Absolutely. Good for your immune system.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

You know, so so there's there's so many great reasons for you know for this connection with kids and and the soil and and growing something. I just think it's a wonderful thing.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Spending time with mum and dad? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

You know, that's good instead of you know And being outside rather than sitting with those bloody stupid things in their in their in their hands, just learning n absolutely nothing about nothing.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

So about what age would you suggest is a good time for kids to start working in the garden with their parents or mucking around in the garden.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Yeah, I look, I think as soon as they can they can crawl and walk. You know, I mean th they can play with compost, providing it's a good compost, um and it you know, and and you you take all the you know precautions that you know that it's not dry and dusty and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. But you know, but even even showing children worms, you know, if you've got a worm farm, you open that up and just watch children, their eyes just go to you know, the living matter that's in there. And that starts the the mind ticking over and it just creates so many beautiful things within their minds about this connection with the soil and the and and and the the living things that are in it. You know, I think it's a great thing for kids.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

So, what are some of the first some small gardening tasks that you think that they should start they can start with?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Um mixing soils, for instance, you know, that that's a great task. You know, I mean getting a little toolkit. Getting a little toolkit uh and and getting a bucket full of a little tiny bucket full of compost and taking you know, tipping it into the bed, and then getting the little tools and working that soil that that compost into the soil. So they they're getting this understanding that that there's an input that they've got to have into the soil before they get something back out from it.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

So how important is it for kids to have their own space? So not just to be doing the same thing, working with the same thing, I mean having their own dedicated bed.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Do you think that's a I think that's a great idea, and you can do that in so many ways, regardless of whether you you've got you're lucky enough to have a a plot of land somewhere that you can have their own veggie garden. Um or or whether you you're on a balcony, you can always get you know self-watering containers that that the kids can grow and and engage with, you know, put seeds in. But you know, I I sort of think about um all the times that that I was growing up um and m my parents were not vegetable growers, my uncle was, but my parents weren't. But we had a I had a little sand pit, and I spent so much time in that sand pit. Turn it over the sand. Just just it was no, it was just brick sand, it was just, you know, that that yellow sand. And I spent so much time in enjoying that. But if I had gone to the next stage and said, well, listen, rather than a sand pit, I'm gonna have a vegetable patch of my own, yeah, I would have got so much more out of that little that little space and learnt so much more at a much earlier age than I would have in driving trucks and doing that sort of stuff, you know?

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Did you drive trucks?

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Oh, you mean building a little thing roads with your trucks, I get what you mean. Selling something and getting something back out of it.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Yeah. And I was also thinking, you know, themed gardens might be a good idea, dear too. So for a little girl who loves her fairies and a, you know, she a little fairy garden might be nice or something like that. Yep. There are so many little things that will like that that might attract bring your child out and you know, attract them to the garden to start with and then move it up to the vegetable garden or something.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, I mean, you know, we we we you know, we uh we we speak to people that start off doing just one little thing in the garden and all of a sudden it it grows and blooms into so something so much bigger and better.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

And we had a chat to Bertrina Bloom. And that's where she started. That's right. She said she was six years old and she planted a little carnation. I think she just thought that's a good one. Yes, she did.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

And it was just and then she became you know an um of the floristry, that's right. Which is fabulous.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

That's right. So it's if do you think it's fairly in parents fairly important that parents let their children go for it with something like that. Stand back a little bit and let them you know fail if they need to have a place.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

It is important, but and that's the connection that they should have with what they're gonna be growing from. I think that the next stage, after they've you know, they've they've composited a beautiful little patch for themselves, I think the next stage needs to be c a little bit more educated, a little bit more controlled. Yep. Um and y you you need to sort of look at what is going to be the quickest benefit and the quickest return for the effort that those children put into.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

That's right. Um that was my next question. Yeah. About what they would need to have a good they need to see a they need to give it a results of their activity. Exactly. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Um, you know, so I always I I always used to sort of say to people, you know, if they want to engage children in growing something, one of the best things they can do is is is to grow fr French breakfast radishes.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

All right. Now, people think of radishes that as this you know real bitey sort of a um uh a flavour. But the French breakfast radish is not it's a beautiful sweet radish. It's only a small radish. Yeah. But the beauty about it is that that from sowing the seed until you you you harvest that is only seven weeks. Okay. You know, whereas you sow it you sow a seed for a carrot and we're looking at sixteen weeks. You've got to keep that interest happening with those children. And and if you if you engage with the children in such a way that you know that you say, well, listen, here's this little tiny seed, um, and and it depends on their age, but you know, you can sort of sort of say, well, this little tiny seed's got to be planted twice its width in depth, and it's got to be kept moist because it's got to have contact with the with the soil, it's got to have contact with moisture, and then the first thing it'll do, which you can't see, is to send down its little root. And when it gets its root down deep enough, it'll then put up two leaves, and those first two leaves are not the true leaves, they're the embryonic leaves.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

What what what do you mean would be me going three years old? What?

SPEAKER_00 9:36

What's that? What embryonic leaves? These two these two leaves are not the not the true leaves, they're not the ones that you're going to see coming on after them. They're little solar panels to the sun. Yes, yes. You know, so you if you explain that and and and and encourage that with children in stages. Um with with older children, for instance, that that have never had any relationship with growing things, um I I saw a a talk one day given by um a chap who I think is probably one of the one of the greatest Australian plantsmen that I've ever met in my life, and his name is Simon Ricard. Um, and I saw Simon Simon Rickard. I saw Simon give um a talk one day, and the way that he explained how a seed works was to show people in the audience a USB that you put into a computer. And he said, This little USB is absolutely useless in my pocket. But when I take it out and I plug it into a computer, it's full of all the things that I've put in there, or all the things that can be put in there, and it just comes to life. And that is exactly the same thing as a tiny little seed. That little seed contains its genetic makeups, what it was from the parent plant that it it came from. You know, so whether it was a lettuce or whether it was a carrot or a beetroot or a cabbage, it's got that genetic memory that's built into it. And I think that's a great connection that you can have with the older children to sort of say this this is how it all goes.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yes, yes. If they don't they probably don't know what USBs are anymore, are they? No, they probably don't. But anyway, um that things like broad beans, sunflowers, uh peas, they're I mean they're pretty good depending on your age. Yeah. Because they I mean sunflowers are you know, they're amazing flowers. So that's another option for children. Are there any other things that you're thinking that you can think of? Because carrots, I know you said they take 16 weeks, but they're still a bit of fun to grow, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Oh, they're and and and they're they're fabulous.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

And the beauty about and they can come back in some really weird shapes and they find it.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Oh yeah, they can. Um and that's another education story for children to pull. Um, you know, I mean I I I always say to people, you know, if you if you've grown if you've grown tomatoes, then you pull when you pull the tomatoes out, the best crop you can put into that without having to put all organics into it is carrots. Because carrots are chasing the stuff that's left in in the soil after that after those after those heavy feeding, draining tomatoes have pulled all the goodness out.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

But the beauty about the carrots is that because the seeds are so small, you you sow them in in with your fingers basically, and you'll get a lot more seeds popping up.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Um, you know, the carrots will come up. So you've got to thin those out. And if you wait until the till the actual carrots themselves are about, you know, 25 millimetres long, you can pull them out, just give them a bit of a dust off and eat them. Have a bit of a chew. And the kids will will get that intense flavour of of a of a freshly grown carrot right there and then. Yeah. While they're while they're waiting for the others to come along.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Yep, yep. Now there's there's obviously the edible plants, but there's also the ornamental plants. Would you prioritise one over the other? I suppose you'd like to. Well, you know so much. Yes, I know. Stupid question. Why am I asking him that?

SPEAKER_00 12:53

I don't know why you asked me.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Whereas I would probably enjoy the ornamentals and I would enjoy the flowers, whereas uh being a girl, no, I shouldn't say being a girl, I shouldn't say that. That's the wrong thing. Um but I do love them, and I know that you, I mean, edible plants are of it. And I I mean I understand the uh the the the reasoning for the edible edibles. A combination of the two, then should we combine the two?

SPEAKER_00 13:12

That's and that's a great idea because then you can teach the children about um companion planting, for instance, where you know you've got one plant uh uh providing a benefit to the other plant. Yes, and and marigolds, for instance.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Companion planting.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Companion planting.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

That's another sign of things as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

So that's another great thing that you can you can teach children. And and so they they can get a beautiful flower happening and it's growing right next to you know a tomato, for instance. Um and there's this great connection between those things. You know, so it's it's a family, it's a family sort of you know, uh, uh an orientation that's happening there.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

That's right. Um what about uh sort of plants that will engage the senses, things that smells obviously smell, touch, touch, all those sort of things.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah, sensory gardens are fabulous for for children. Um, you know, and and you can do that just with herbs. Yep. Um I've just ripped a whole lot of my herbs out because they're they're now getting to the stage where they're you know they're a bit old and tired. But as I was pulling them out, you know, I was just smelling the the you know the beautiful perfume that they emit, you know, the sage, for instance, and and the mints and the thyme and the dill and the rosemary and the dill.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Just dill, just uh you tell suddenly it makes and the Vietnamese mint, which we've got in a pot and parsley. Whenever I'd whenever I'm cutting the parsley, I think of a chicken par chicken sandwich with parsley and avocados. So, yeah, all those things that they'll they'll yeah create yeah all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

And that's and that's another great thing to to be sort of doing with children is is to taking some of those beautiful smelling and tasting things and and putting them into it, the perspective that those children will appreciate will really appreciate. And as she said, you know, mm building a sandwich. Yes, it's it's just fabulous for kids, you know. And it's come out of the garden. I know. You know, you say to the kids, listen, you know where the parsley is up the backyard, go and pick me a bunch. You know? I've got parsley scattered throughout the whole of the garden, you know, the big flat, you know, flat leaf parsley. Yes. And yeah, okay, it looks a bit weedy, but I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

It because it can self-seed a bit, can't it? Oh, yeah. But there's nothing wrong with that though. I like it, I like that's self-seeding. Um what about uh fun plants, things with unusual shapes, colours, or movements? Uh the first one that comes to mind for me is the what is it, the Venus fly trap?

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

That's one.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Any others that come to mind for you that might you know the kids might be excited about? Venus fly trap's fun because you stick your finger in it.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Yeah, yeah. Or even you know, the little sundews, for instance, you know, they're they're they're a fascinating little little plant to to actually grow. Um and that's great for children to to be involved with it. Um my grandchildren um would go on holidays at at uh at Christmas time and and the th they would come to me and say, Listen, we know you're coming up to look after the house and you know, look after the hens and do a bit of watering. Do you think you could water my my indoor plants as well, please? You know? And so that's they've got indoor plants. They've got their own little indoor plants. So that's another great thing that that children can learn about gardening and that that side of you know, that side of the thing.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Where they can be placed because that's important for indoor gardens.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

So I think that's fabulous.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Now I said something before about themed gardens, but there's like the fairy garden that I mentioned, there's also a dinosaur garden, it'd be fun for a boy. Another thing that I was reading about was the pizza garden. That is a great idea. The what what haven't you heard of a pizza garden? No. Well, you've it's almost like well, you plant you you obvious you get a garden bed, you plant it in a pizza sort of shape.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

In the in the triangular side.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Yes, and then you and then you would just, you know, want to make a pizza with mum and dad. You can pick out the bits and pieces that you've got in the garden. So that could be a bit of fun. It's got a bit of colour and a shape and all that sort of thing. So I think that would be a good one. Um how can growing uh food encourage kids to actually eat more vegetables?

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Um this is probably one of the the easiest things for me to to to be able to answer. Um and it comes back with my own association with my granddaughters and and my my grandsons, where my granddaughters would would arrive at at the house and they would say to their mum and dad, why don't you stay in here and talk to Nan and Pop while we go out into the garden? And and that's both the grandsons and the granddaughters.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

So they were encouraging mum and dad to stay here.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

To stay in the house because what they want to do is get out through that back that back door and get out and see what's growing in our garden. And those children would wander around at at various times of the year, pick broccoli straight off the bush and eat it. Have a chew. Chew it, beans, they'd pull carrots, um, they'd go to the fruit trees and and harvest their own, you know, apples and plums and these sorts of things. That is where children learn the value of the homegrown vegetable because there's no comparison, the taste that you're getting from from a supermarket. Um, you know, kid kid you you go to a supermarket and you'll see a bunch of carrots that's got all its tops on it. Well, I can guarantee you right now that the the flavour of those carrots, because they've got the tops on, is going to be less than a carrot that has had the top removed. Because once they get pulled out of the ground, it's that green top that's pulling out all the goodness out of that carrot as it sits there in on the bush, in the in the in the shop.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

The other thing is that if if it if you go to a supermarket and you have a look at a piece of sweet corn and you pick it off and take it home, and and you make a comparison to that, to one you've you've you've grown yourself and you go outside and you pick it off the bush and you open it up and you push your little fingers into the top little kernels and see this milky sap come out, that will be the greatest experience for anyone, including not just children, but for anyone to eat a homegrown piece of corn. Because the thing about corn is that as soon as a piece of corn is picked off the bush, it is it is full of sugar. So the longer it sits uncooked, it converts sugars back into starch. So the flavour diminishes all the way through. So to so to have a piece of homegrown corn out of your garden straight off the is the most incredible flavour, and you watch a child bite into that and their eyes just open up because they've they've got access to all this wonderful flavor and wonderful sugars. It's just sensational. So there's no comparison, you know, if you between a child that will go out in the garden and browse, which means to wander around aimlessly and eat, is just sensational.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Sounds like fun, doesn't it? I'll pick this and I'll have that and then go inside with a big tummy.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

And and it's so good for them because you know, most gardens are all grown with beautiful organic stuff in them, and there's no chemicals and nasties. Yeah, um, you know, it's it's just okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

So from all of this, what tips can you provide, anyone listening, uh for keeping kids interested right from planting through to harvest time?

SPEAKER_00 20:20

I think you've you've got to you've got to sort of explain the whole process with them. So one of the best things you can do in actual fact is is is to set things up so they can see what's happening. You know, so step by step. Yeah, step by step. Um and and and the the lucky thing about m my situation is that we've got eight raised beds plus a couple of other big beds in the ground. So we have an opportunity there to already have things that are close to harvesting. Um and to give you an idea, we've we've got a whole heap of cabbages in there now that are nowhere near re being ready to be harvested, but we can still take the outer leaves on those and cook and prepare something that will blow those children away. Um, you know, we can we can do staff stuffed cabbage rolls, for instance, with beautiful flavours in them. You know, so there's already something happening. And there is a stage behind that where we have got successional planting coming on. So we've got um we've got a whole row of of collies, which are a single harvest, whole row of cabbages, single harvest. We've got broccoli, which you can have lots of multi-harvesting out of, so the kids can get out there and pick all those things and get an immediate benefits and immediate relationships to what they're growing.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Okay. All right, so apart from the plants, which we've discussed enough. Well, not enough, but enough, a lot. What other elements will make a garden inviting for children, like paths or hideaways or you know, and that's a that's a great thing to combine the all of these things together.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

That's a that's a great thing to sort of think about when you're when you're you're you know you're laying out a garden is is think about th if you've got children. Particularly, think about your own memories of a garden that you were involved with. What what was it that that enticed you into that garden? What was it that gave you that space that if you had a cranky day with mum and dad, you had some spot in your garden to go and and get into? And we had little cubby houses and things like that. And they're great memories, you know. So you you've got to think about what you had in your garden that you could experience with your children and and and bring them along in that way. You know, I mean I was lucky enough, as I said, mum and dad weren't were never vegetable growers. Mum mum liked to grow flowers um and got a lot of joy out of doing that. But my uncle was was a fabulous vegetable gardener. Um and and when whenever we visited him, he would walk with me and we would go up with a sharp knife and we would go and harvest, you know, uh vegetables to take home with us. Yeah, sounds lovely. You know, and there was always that sort of thing. Even to this day, and I can still remember that the the that not far from where we lived, there was a guy who used to grow his own vegetables, and he he had the whole backyard turned over to growing all this stuff. And mum used to give me some money that we could go down there, I could go down there by myself and pick some vegetables and pay him for that. You know, and he would go up there and harvest them there and then, and I would come back with those. So those memories were never. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you are.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Look what you're doing now, and you've got the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

No one's coming and paying you for your vegetables.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

No, I don't I don't want payment for those.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Um what common plant should be avoided around children? For example, Catherine mentioned that she wasn't aware that azaleas were poisonous. So what else are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Okay, so so that's something that that I think you need to educate children with. There's not everything, not every plant can be picked and chewed. Um from a very, very early age, um, my mother loved oleanders.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

But it was always said to me that every part of that plant was poisonous. The flowers, the leaves, the bark, the stems, everything was poisonous about it.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

So you knew not to touch.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

And I mean azaleas are azaleas are the same thing, but as long as you know, you know, you've you've set boundaries and say, well, you can't touch that, you can't chew that, and you never ever chew anything without bringing it to me first and saying, Hey, can I chew this or can I and it smells good, but can I eat it? Yeah, yeah. Because there's lots of things within that that you can't do. So I don't think you should molycoddle the garden to such a stage where you say to the children, well, don't touch that, don't eat that. Because you don't it educate them. Tell them.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

You don't want you want to be able to enjoy, like the your mum loved the oleanders, remember? Then you want her to be able to enjoy them without worrying about the kids. So educating them. Yeah, definitely. Okay. Now there are a number of other safety issues that need to be considered with little ones. Tool use is one, so we have to be very careful and we have to educate them on the tool use.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yeah, you you do. Um my um things. My my um oldest boy s said to me, uh look, Dad, if you're thinking about um something to buy the kids for Christmas, this is what I'd love for you to get them. And it was an an Oppenle, which is a French brand, beautifully made um knife, used for whittling.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

All right, so it was a knife used for whittling. And the OpenLives Um they fold down so the blade folds away, and you open it up, and then you've got this little little knurl at the top that you turn around so that that blade can't close in on itself. So those boys, and they were really, really young, were introduced to how to whittle with a knife, always cutting away from it. So it's another education thing.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

So they learnt all that. So I got those those those boys openel knives for whittling so that they could take them away on the holidays and go and cut things, you know, and and do all this sort of stuff. But I always packed away with them a packet of band-aids. Oh, that's good, that's something. But you know, that it's it, you know, that it's up to the parents to to to sort of say, you know, it's like the plants in the garden. Yeah. There's things about these that you're gonna, you know, gonna cut yourself with. Yeah. And to this day, you know, I still cut myself with with tall tools and things. Yeah, well I think we all know. My wife hates the fact that I'm got a new tool that's sharp because she knows I'm gonna do something with it.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Quite a few times. Ooh. Okay. What's the trick for parents to gardening with kids being an enjoyable rather than a stressful activity?

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Get out there and show them how it's done and show them the benefits of what they're gonna be doing in that garden. Open, as I said, open up the worm farm and and let them let them stick their fingers in that that muck in there, knowing that they can wash their hands afterwards and there's no diseases or things that are gonna hurt them. It's a great connection, but you've got to take it's a journey. Gardening is a journey, just like life.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Yeah, you've got to take them and involve with them and encourage them and be prepared for things to get messy and don't worry about it, which is something that I probably worried about too much when I was when my kids were young. Oh no, they're messing up, they're pulling out my plants. Which I should have just gone. It's fine. Let them go fine. It's absolutely fine. They've got to learn somehow. Exactly. Okay. Um, what suggestions do you have for busy families who would love to introduce their children to gardening but don't have a lot of time? We need a school activities.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Yeah, I then then I would suggest that they they look at getting a little self-watering planter. Um, Green Smart make a fabulous one that I've got three or four of those. Um so and it's just filled with potting mix. And you can plant seedlings in them. So you don't you don't need to go from seed and and wait for the germination and watching the moon calendar. You can go down and buy some seedlings from the big green warehouse and plant those straight away. And if you do it on the on the correct days of of planting, then the kids can rip those seedlings of to bits just about and put them in, and they're not going to fail. Right. Because you've got that 11-day window of of perfect growing medium.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

So you need the moon gardening calendar.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

So you've got to get a moon gardening, and and that's another great journey for children. That's true. You know, you could say here's a here's a moon calendar, yeah, and and explain to them how it works. We've got this moon in the in the you know in the on the in the sky that has an effect on the tides twice a day. And it has the same effect on the soil, the sap flow and all these sorts of things. So there's another great little education for kids. That's true. We need to go back to that.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so how do you think these early experiences, from your experience in particular, shape a lifelong love of gardening?

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Um, I could show you.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

I could show you Did your uncle, do you think that that's your uncle's garden and the man down the road and you paid for it?

SPEAKER_00 28:47

That was where that was where my love and connection came for growing vegetables came from. Um but it it it's just it's just the joy and beauty of of taking or allowing a child into that space where you've got those things happening. I there's nothing better as far as I'm concerned. You know, I'm I'm and I'm and I another thing I'll never forget was holding my my grandson, my oldest grandson Archer, and and he was he wasn't walking at that stage, he was just crawling, and I took him around the garden and we went up to an area where I had a black passion fruit. And I pulled a black passion fruit off and I cut a little tiny piece out of it and squeezed it up and put it to his mouth and he turned his head away. And when he turned his head back, I dabbed it, dabbed it on his lips quickly, and he tasted it, and he grabbed that and he sucked the living whatever out of that out of that passion fruit, and by the time he'd finished it and threw it through it through the empty one on the ground because he couldn't get nothing out of it, he pointed back to go back and get another one. That's that is a lasting memory for me. And that's what you've got to think about doing with every single child you can possibly engage with is especially these days. Yeah, exactly. It's more than this day.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah, get them out and off their screens and into the garden. Absolutely. Absolutely. School programs, you want to talk about some school programs? Because there are some there's some really good ones.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Um and and and this is the importance that you you come across and how how it's it's been seen and and and worked and related, is is and I and I think of Stephanie Alexander and a kitchen garden scheme. I think that is just absolutely fantastic. Um that that's a paid-for setup organization, but it's a start, it's an introduction for children at school to know where the where the food comes from. There is another fabulous organization called Farm My School. Now, um, this is one that that Costa George Yard is is in is involved with where they have areas within a school that is just useless, and they turn those in in over a weekend into productive gardens, and they plant all their all their stuff in there which they can then take home and harvest. They can have fate days and sell produce and all this sort of stuff. So that is absolutely brilliant. Then there's also the CSIRO have a taste and learn program. So these are things that you can just Google and get on online and get that engagement with children. So I just think these things are fabulous. And the more of it happening out there, the happier I'm gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Good, me too. And that's a great idea for parents who are too big, who are quite busy if they know at least they know their school is doing some education of their children with getting out in the garden. That's a that's something. So that's really good. Well, there you go. Gardening with kids isn't about perfection, it's about curiosity, mess, discovery, and those little moments of wonder when something finally sprouts. And as Catherine's story shows, giving children even a small space to call their own can make a huge impact, not just on their love of gardening, but on their connection to food and the natural world. So if you've been thinking about getting your kids involved, start small, keep it fun, and let them lead the way. And if you've got your own tips, stories, or questions about gardening with kids, we would love to hear from you, just as Catherine did. So happy gardening with your kids! Thank you for listening to Muddy Boots. For more information on today's podcast, please go to muddyboots.net.au and happy gardening.