Easy Plants for Kids to Grow

A kid’s garden is a wonderful place which is why I’m delighted to share with you some fun and easy plants for kids to grow.

Growing food with your kids is a wonderful bonding experience. It teaches both you and your kids where your food comes from, how the crops are grown, and gets your children outside in the fresh air and dirt.

Plants for a kid’s garden can include healthy veggies, flowers, and herbs.

Gardening quotes

Best Plants for Kids to Grow

  • Peas: A delight to plant as the seeds are nice and large but they’re also easy to harvest and fun to eat straight from the pods! Kids will love the vines and enjoy setting up the trellis. Peas come in green and even purple colors.
  • Carrots: Carrots come in so many other fun colors! Try purple  (‘purple dragon’ or ‘cosmic purple’) or red (‘atomic red’) there’s also white and many shades of orange.
  • Pole Beans: This pretty vining crop is fun to grow as they climb upwards and produce many flowers. The more you pick, the more it grows and they’re an easy crop for kids to harvest. Beans come in lots of fun colors and some are even speckled or spotted (‘Orca’ ‘Jacobs Cattle Beans’ ‘Cranberry’ although those tend to be the bush beans not pole). Snap/string beans come in green, yellow and even purple (which will turn green when cooked). Our kids love the yellow beans the most with a little butter and salt! You can even make a bean teepee for your kids to play in.
  • Watermelon/Muskmelon: Is there anything more tasty in the summer than fresh juicy watermelon? Try some fun varieties like ‘Orangelo’ which is orange inside or icebox watermelons.

Growing pumpkins for kids Halloween

  • Pumpkins: Kids love growing pumpkins as the seeds are large and easy to sow and the vining crops grow enormous. Kids will love carving their own jack o lantern pumpkins for Halloween and eating pumpkin pie. The carving varieties tend to be large and a little too stringy for pies. Grow ‘Small Sugar’ for pies ‘Jack o Lantern’ for carving and ‘Jack be Little’ if you want cute little pumpkins for décor. Try Cinderella pumpkins for even larger pumpkins!
  • Berries: I think most kids love berries- strawberries, blueberries, loganberries, raspberries, blackberries always taste sweeter and juicer when picked at peak ripeness. Berries are perennials plants or bushes though and may take a couple of years to start producing enough to harvest. Because they take so long to start producing enough harvest, you’ll need to know when to trim the raspberry and other bushes. They’re worth the investment though, berries cost a lot of money and taste better homegrown.
  • Kale & other salad greens: YES! Your kids can love greens if you grow them and cook them the right way. Our kids love kale chips or sautéed greens and garlic. They’ll eat spinach and strawberry salad or even nibble on spicy arugula or spinach straight from the garden. Many kids will eat salad if you have the right dressing (one of our kids loves vinaigrette salads whereas the other needs Caesar dressing). Many greens have tiny seeds so care is needed when sowing. I find that densely sown greens from kids sowing all over the place works out though because you can harvest them at the baby leaf stage.
  • Peppers: Peppers are fun to eat raw with dips and come in many colors. You can grow bell peppers or sweet peppers, I’d stay clear of the hot ones. Most of the colored ones are green and will turn into red, yellow, brown, or orange with prolonged heat. There are many fun varieties and many can be grown in containers. Learn how to grow peppers
  • Cherry Tomatoes: Many kids love little bite-sized cherry tomatoes. ‘Sungold’ is a very sweet yellow cherry tomato that many kids love even if they don’t like tomatoes. The seeds (like peppers) are a little smaller so care is needed when growing transplants or you can buy your own from a garden center.


Best crops for kids to grow, harvest & eat

Kids that grow vegetables are also far more likely to eat them.

Our kids won’t touch store bought carrots, radishes or peas but from the garden they eat them raw! We like to keep track of our garden with our kids by letting them keep a cute garden journal. I created these fun printable garden journal templates that you can use as a family to keep a garden journal.

Fun printable garden journal & garden planmner

 


  • Peppers: Peppers are fun to eat raw with dips and come in many colors. You can grow bell peppers or sweet peppers, I’d stay clear of the hot ones. Most of the colored ones are green and will turn into red, yellow, brown, or orange with prolonged heat. There are many fun varieties and many can be grown in containers. Learn how to grow peppers
  • Cherry Tomatoes: Many kids love little bite-sized cherry tomatoes. ‘Sungold’ is a very sweet yellow cherry tomato that many kids love even if they don’t like tomatoes. The seeds (like peppers) are a little smaller so care is needed when growing transplants or you can buy your own from a garden center.

Kids love sungold cherry tomatoes

Best Flowers for Kids to Grow

Plants aren’t just ones that you eat, kids absolutely love flowers too. When creating a magical children’s garden, flowers add so many opportunities for fun and games. Our girls always love picking the flower petals and making ‘fairy soup’ or stringing the classic flower crowns.

Favorite flowers in the kids garden: Zinnias

Herbs for Kids to Plant

We love growing calendula flowers for our kids as we dry the flower petals and make calendula oil with them, and they’re excellent flowers for companion planting. They also have a strong scent and kids enjoy harvesting them.

  • Basil – green or purple
  • Chamomile
  • Lemon balm
  • Mints
  • Sage
  • Oregano
  • Dill

And if you harvest basil seeds for example, your kids will be able to continue to harvest this herb in the future which will only improve their gardening skills and help them to become hard workers.

Great herbs for kitchen garden: Green or purple basil


Easy seeds for little hands to grow, harvest & eat from the garden

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