Making a summer garden that can be enjoyed by the whole family is a worthwhile project to do, especially if you have children who enjoy exploring the outdoors. One of the major factors you have to consider to make your summer garden child-friendly is safety in order to avoid slipping and falling. To prevent accidents, you could invest in an anti-slip finish for your concrete areas and you can make areas under your children’s play equipment safe with rubber matting, bark chipping or other grass – you’ll not really want to place their swings or slides straight onto the concrete areas of your garden.
Let your child choose what to plant
The best way to introduce children to gardening is to allow them to pick out fruits and vegetables that they like to eat and flowers that they like to see. This way, children can watch the plants grow and develop. Children who may not be fond of eating vegetables at first may be more willing to try eating veggies when they see it growing.
Some of the easiest plants to grow are herbs such as cilantro, thyme, and basil; for fruits and vegetables, zucchini, strawberries, tomatoes, green beans, and squash are great options. Flowers add interest, colour, and scents to a garden; some of the best choices include sunflowers, dill, nasturtiums, zinnias, and marigolds.
Let your child get messy
One of the best things about creating a summer garden is letting your child learn about the science of growing things, and there’s no better way to do that than to allow them to do the planting themselves. Let your child dig holes where the seeds would go and put the seeds in there themselves. Teach them the proper way of watering, and then show them how to pull out weeds. When it’s time to harvest, let your child pick the fruits and veggies that they have grown.
Emmy and Harry love nothing more than playing in their mud kitchen in the spring/summer months – although I have had to dedicate just one area of my garden for them to dig up otherwise there would be holes all over the place.
Purchase kid-safe gardening tools
With their sharp edges, gardening tools may be dangerous for children, so it’s best to keep your power tools in a shed or storage bin away from the reach of small hands. It’s a good thing that there are child-friendly gardening tools that are often made of plastic that your child can use in gardening, complete with small gardening gloves. The kid-safe tools are also a great way to learn how to use gardening tools properly, so that when they get older, they can use the “real” tools without any difficulty.
Designate a play area
Gardens aren’t all about plants; many gardens have a play area where you can put a swing set, sand pits, a jungle gym, and other outdoor play equipment. Make sure that the area you designate for play gets plenty of shade and have grass or soft surface.
Put safety measures in place
Some plants growing in your garden may be poisonous when touched or consumed, so it’s important to check what exactly we have in your garden. If you are not sure whether a particular plant is dangerous, have a trusted gardener take a look at it. For your child’s play area, secure a rubber mat under the jungle gym or swing set to prevent serious injury. If you have wood or concrete decking, have anti-slip finish applied on it to prevent spills.
>A summer garden is a wonderful and educational way to introduce your child to the wonders of nature, but make sure you have safety measures in place not only for your child’s enjoyment but for your peace of mind as well.
Make a place to sit back and enjoy
Of course, now you have your lovely summer garden the kids will most likely want to spend a lot of time outside so don’t forget to make an area where you can sit and watch them and spend time with them too – and also a place where they can sit down and rehydrate
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