7 ways to get your kids to grow their own vegetables

A handful of tips and easy veg that parents can grow with kids from TV chef Lorraine Pascale
Liz Connor7 March 2016

Want to get your kids interested in eating fresh fruit and vegetables?

Allowing them to get their hands dirty and have fun growing their own is the easiest way to get them excited about healthy and nutritious foods, says TV chef Lorraine Pascale.

The former model is working with not-for-profit organisation Grow it Yourself and Innocent to help provide 20,000 children up and down the country with everything they need to grow their own fruit and veg in classrooms.

Here, she shares seven top tips to inspire children to get growing in the garden.

1. Get stuck in

Kids are naturally curious about food if we give them the chance. They love the process of sowing seeds and getting their hands in soil – so that’s a great way to get them interested. Give them some soil and some seeds and let them at it! It doesn’t need a trip to an allotment to inspire them! They will get a great buzz from seeing a little seedling emerge from the soil and having a real plant to mind and, of course, they are more likely to try vegetables like spinach and peas when they’ve grown them themselves.

2. Sow and grow

All you need is some soil or potting compost, some seeds and a paper cup to get started. Start with seeds that grow quickly so children get an almost instant result. That's why this year's Sow & Grow schools campaign with Grow It Yourself and innocent is growing cress, peas and spinach – all of which grow fast and are yummy.

3. Educate your children

The best approach is to let your child do the sowing – get them to break up the soil and put the seeds in themselves. Talk to them about what you're growing and maybe show them what the end product looks like (e.g. if you have some spinach in the fridge or peas in the freezer). The whole thing will become clearer to them as the veg grows. Involving their friends is a great idea – it’s a fun, mucky, hands-on activity for all of them! The kitchen is a great place to leave planted cups – the main thing is that you want it to be nice and bright and relatively warm, particularly at this cold time of the year. In a darker room seedlings become weak and ‘leggy’ because they are literally straining to reach the light. Seedlings are sun worshippers just like we are!

4. Engage their interests

Herbs are a great thing to grow with kids because they engage the senses with their different tastes, smells and textures. They are generally easy to grow and from a single sowing some herbs will last for years. Not only that, but they have multiple uses, not just in cooking (turning a basic tomato in to pizza sauce) but also for making teas and even in healing. Kids will love being sent out to the garden to pick some herbs for the dinner and it’s amazing how quickly they will be able to tell them apart. Herbs are great and easy to grow too - some favourite herbs to grow are mint, rosemary, thyme and basil.

5. Maintain your growing schedule

Water your seeds daily but don’t drown them - just enough to keep the compost moist. Give kids a little watering can or make a watering can with them by poking some holes in the lid of a water or juice bottle. Get them to check the soil each day with a finger and ask them to describe how it feels – is it dry or wet? If it feels dry it needs watering. If it doesn’t, check the next day! In a sunny room the soil might dry out quite quickly so make sure it’s moist right down in the cup (not just the surface).

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6. Plate up your produce

Once kids have been involved in growing the food they will be likely to try it – they might not like it, but they will at least try it! If you’re finding it hard to get them to try it, you can try and work it in to other recipes. For example, children will like cress, particularly if it’s in an egg salad. Pea shoots and baby leaf spinach be worked in to a pasta dish or made in to pesto. Once your seedlings get tall you can think about eating them - all of the above veg can be eaten at seedling stage in salads and other recipes (the pea shoots are particularly delicious!)

7. Make it fun

Gardening doesn’t have to be boring. Keep children interested by doing different activities. You can get them to design their own plant markers, teach them how to press flowers or even play a game of Garden Bingo.

Follow Lorraine Pascale on Twitter: @lorrainepascale

Follow us on Twitter: @eslifeandstyle

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