Easy, Exciting, Herbs For Kids
Giving Time - Teaching Skills for Life

So where do you start with herbs for kids? Herbs are fairly easy for kids to grow. Growing herbs can be exciting for kids as they also get to taste their work.

From choosing their containers to choosing the herbs they will grow there are lots of choices to make. Will your kids grow herbs from seed (they will need to be patient, this works better with older kids). Or will you get small starter plants from a garden center.

If you know someone with a herb garden they may be able to give you some cuttings.

Small starter plants grow very quickly and kids will soon see the plants growing. They will quickly be able to smell and taste their herb garden.

The kids just love it when we say go and get some parsley or basil for the tea.

And you can grow herbs indoors too, so if you have no outside space your kids can still enjoy herbs for kids

Come on in

Here you will find a collection of gardening for kids activities
which you will find really useful

Activities and resources created and discovered over many years while raising our own kids

Pizza Garden

Last year we decided with the kids to have a go at gowing a pizza garden.

We started by putting small tomato plants into a grow bag. We got the kids to do a design for their pizza herb container.

They then painted this on, we used little pots of acrylic paint(it is water resistant when dry.

We chose to plant basil, garlic, origano and parsley (seedlings we purchased)

The kids filled the container with a good potting mix, then gently put in the seedlings. They used their water spay guns on fine mist to give the seedlings a drink.

A few weeks later the kids were able to harvest some of their crop. We then made a sauce for their pizza using the tomatoes and herbs.

Yummy, what a great way to get kids interested in gardening

THEMED HERBS FOR KIDS

Why not try something a little different.
How about a pizza garden with oregano, garlic and parsley.
Try a spaghetti garden with oregano, garlic, basil and parsley.
A lovely fragrant garden might have lavender, thyme, rosemary, mints and curry plants.
And to quench our thirst, lemon balm for lemonade, chamomile for tea, and mints for tea

Easy herbs for kids

These can be grown from seed or bought as seedlings:

Dill

Lemon Balm

Chives

Sage,

Summer Savory

Mints

Drying Herbs

Another great activity is to dry herbs. This is easily done and can be used in recipes for kids.
How about drying herbs to make your own pot pourri(you and your kids can choose your favorite fragrances
Lavender bags are a fairly easy craft activity, the dried herbs can also be used to add fragrance to pillows and soft toys.
To Dry Herbs
Cut bunches of herbs on a dry day. Strip off lower leaves. Bunch together and tie stems with string.
Put holes in a large paper bag. Put bunch of herbs in upside down and gather ends of paper bag around stems and tie
Place bag in a warm room or airing cupboard for around two weeks.
Check to see if herbs for kids are dried.
Once dried store herbs in airtight containers.

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Gardening tips

GROWING GARLIC

Get the kids to break apart a cloveof garlic.

The cloves can then be put into your container of compost about 2 to 4 inches deep and around 4 inches apart.

Before they flower when the tips of the leaves turn brown harvest and repeat.

DID YOU KNOW?

Herbs get a mention in the Bible. Dill, Cumin and mint come up in Matthew 23:23. Coriander seed is mentioned in the Old Testament in Exodus 16:31 and Numbers 11:7

INDOOR HERBS

Here is a list of herbs that will happily grow indoors:
Basil, Dill, Chives, Fennel,
Sage, Thyme, Lavender, Mint
Parsley, Rosemary, Oregano
They will need to be grown in a sunny well lit area of your home.

IDEAS

Keep lolly pop sticks to make labels. Keep empty yoghurt pots and margerine tubs for growing seeds in. Cardboard egg boxes are great for planting seeds, then when you need to plant seedlings out simply cut the egg box and plant each individual egg cup in the ground. They are biodegradable.

SCIENCE

Talk to your kids about what plants need to grow.
Sun, water, warmth air and nutrients from soil.
Try an experiment.
Plant seeds into three small containers
Put one pot in a dark place. Put one pot in the sunlight. Withhold water from one pot.
Ask the kids to keep a record of what happens.

Kids garden game

Our kids love treasure hunts. They love this one. Take 20 small pieces of paper, draw a different fruit on each one. Then go and hide them in the garden. Tell the kids to go and look for fruit you have hidden.

You could make a little booklet with a drawing of each fruit for them to take out with them to tick each one off.

We sometimes get the kids to act out the names of fruit when they have found them and we have to guess what the fruit is

As a variation we sometimes hide individually wrapped sweets for the kids to find as we do gardening for kids

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