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The Best Vegetables to Grow with Your Kids

The Best Vegetables to Grow with Your Kids Featured Image
The author’s daughter with a pumpkin she grew.

I remember the first time I pulled a carrot from the ground as a child. It was like magic. A simple carrot became a hidden golden-orange gem in the Earth that I could pull and eat! I’d wander the garden, plucking a cherry tomato here, a lettuce leaf there, or snapping off a bean to nibble. It was enjoyable, and I learned to love vegetables in the process. This is why I grow delicious, interesting vegetables with my own children. I’m spreading the garden fun and veggie appreciation.

There were two things I cared about with vegetables as a child: 1. Is it fun to eat? 2. Is it fun to harvest? These are the criteria used for this list. As an added bonus for parents, these vegetables are also easy to grow

Fun Vegetables to Eat and Pick

Cherry tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes:  There are so many cool cherry tomatoes to try now, and the smaller, sweeter, and more colorful, the better. I recommend ‘Minibel’, which produces sweet red tomatoes on tiny plants, ‘Sun Gold’, which produces loads of super sweet, golden-orange cherry tomatoes, the unusual ‘Blue Cream Berries’ with its pale yellow and blue fruits, and the classic ‘Sweet Million’ which literally produces hundreds of sweet red cherry tomatoes on large vines. Kids also love super tiny ‘Sweet Pea‘ currant tomatoes and ‘Gold Rush’ currant tomatoes, which literally pop with flavor in the mouth. Caging your plants makes harvesting easier—especially for little ones

French Bush Beans

French Bush Beans: My children love French haricot vert bush beans because they are super thin, stringless, and sweet. The best varieties for kids are produced on small, bushy plants. Try the classic green ‘Rolande’ or the golden yellow ‘Pauldor’

Asian Long Beans: These beans look like spaghetti noodles! They are vining, so trellising is required, but they love hot summer weather, and kids love to pick and eat them. ‘Thai Red-Seeded’ is a great Asian long bean for kids because it grows so well, and the super long beans double as green hair or green bean rope.

Beit Alpha Cucumbers

Beit Alpha Cucumbers: These crisp, sweet cucumbers are skinless, practically seedless, and taste great right from the vine. Bring a little water for rinsing, and a little ranch dressing for dipping, and they have an instant garden snack. The new AAS-Winning variety ‘Diva’ is my favorite because it is disease resistant and produces lots of cucumbers.

Miniature Carrots: Mini carrots are easier for kids to pull from the ground, so they get all the fun with no root breakage. Tiny round ‘Romeo’ carrots and the small conical ‘Short Stuff’ are great selections for a kid’s vegetable garden. Both also grow well in containers

Child holding up baby carrots

Yum Yum Mini Bell Peppers: The name says it all! These yummy, sweet, mini bell peppers look like Christmas lights and come in shades of red, yellow, and orange! The peppers are high in vitamin C and fun to pick. Just be sure to plant your Yum Yum mini bell peppers away from any hot peppers you may be growing

Small Pumpkins: Kids love to harvest and decorate their very own pumpkins in fall! The little guys, like ‘Baby Bear‘ and ‘Baby Pam‘ are just the right size for kids. Extras can be processed to make Thanksgiving pumpkin pies. Be sure to give the vines plenty of sun and space and you will be rewarded with lots of fall pumpkins

Strawberry Popcorn: Kids can believe these cute, deep red ears actually pop up to make tasty popcorn! Strawberry popcorn is produced on smaller 4-foot plants and the ears are small too. They are decorative when dry and can be popped up in winter as a happy reminder of warmer summer days.

Strawberry Popcorn

Growing Your Vegetables

Organic gardening is a must, especially when growing vegetables for children. Successful vegetables start with good bed prep and summer-long care. Choose a sunny spot, work up your garden soil, and add a healthy amount of Fafard Premium Natural & Organic Compost and Fafard Garden Manure Blend before planting. Keep your vegetable watered and watch them do their summer magic

When children grow their own vegetables, they eat their vegetables. They look forward to the harvest and enjoy preparing what they have picked. Let them help snap the beans for a salad or clean the carrots before trimming and peeling them for snacking. There’s no better way to enjoy time with your kids while instilling good lifelong habits in the process.

Child picking 'Sun Gold' cherry tomatoes
Picking and eating sweet ‘Sun Gold’ cherry tomatoes is always fun for kids!

Kid’s Gardening: Big Seeds for Little Hands

Kids' Gardening: Big Seeds for Little Hands Featured Image
Renee's Garden Mini Jack pack of seeds

Kids just naturally love dirt—ask any parent. When you encourage children to put their hands in that dirt and plant seeds, you are growing future gardeners. But as with any learning experience, kids are more likely to take to gardening if you help make it fun and accessible. The best way to start is with a packet of big seeds.

Start by talking about what the child wants to grow. Some children naturally gravitate to colorful flowers, while others might like the idea of planting and harvesting their own Halloween pumpkins. If your child is very young or unsure about the whole project, start with one easy plant type and see what happens. More than one gardener started his or her horticultural life with a single bean planted in a paper cup.

Child holding pumpkin
Pumpkins are a great first garden plant for children to try.

Handling small seeds can be frustrating for small people, so make it easy by choosing plants that grow from the kind of large seeds that are simple to handle, plant, and love. If the child likes flowers, annual sunflowers (Helianthus) are a wonderful way to start, featuring large seeds and a wide array of varieties to choose from.

Traditional giant types are inspiring to watch, rising to 6 feet or more, with huge, yellow-petaled flowerheads. Some of the shorter hybrid types boast petals in shades from palest cream through yellows, oranges, and reds—perfect for enjoying up close, or for arranging in the empty jam jars that seem to lurk in so many kitchen cupboards.

Renee's Garden Cup of Sun pack of seeds

Other good ornamental varieties include low-growing nasturtiums (Tropaeolum) and brightly colored Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia rotundifolia). If ground space is limited, plant climbers like scarlet runner beans (Phaseolus coccineus). Nasturtiums can also climb or sprawl from hanging baskets if you pick the right varieties.

The world of edible species is full of large-seeded plants. Small children often like peas—either traditional or snap varieties—which also feature lovely flowers. Beans of all sorts are another option. Let little ones help you build simple supports for these sprawling crops. Pumpkins, from the cute miniature types to bright orange behemoths, also start with large seeds. Hilling up soil for planting mounds can be, literally, child’s play. Other members of the cucurbit family, like squashes and melons, are also possibilities.

If your child insists on growing tiny-seeded edibles like carrots or greens, try to find vendors that offer pelleted seeds. These easy-to-handle products consist of tiny seeds encased in pea-like pellets of inert material. Once the pellets go into the ground, moisture quickly dissolves the coating and the seeds sprout normally.

If you are working with very young children, supervise carefully to make sure that they do not put any seed—even those of edible crops—in their mouths.

Planting Garlic
For kids, planting time is almost as fun as harvest time!

Before planting large-seeded edible or ornamental varieties, parents should prevent later disappointment by doing a bit of prep work. Suit your crop to your particular situation and make sure that sun-loving varieties will receive enough light. Can you dedicate a small portion of your garden to your child’s plants? If not, container growing is always an option. Encourage your child to have a sense of ownership of the plot or container, so he or she will take an extra measure of pride in the finished crop.

Give big seeds a leg up by growing them in planting beds amended with a nutrient-rich product like Fafard® Premium Natural & Organic Compost. For seed starting, choose Black Gold® Seedling Mix, a quality seed-starting medium that grows robust seedlings fit for little hands to plant. Some large seeds, like nasturtiums, sunflowers, and morning glories, benefit from an overnight soak to soften hard outer shells before planting.

Fafard Premium Natural & Organic Compost Blend pack

Once the planting is done, check the beds or containers every day. Encourage the children to watch and tend their plants, but be sure to supervise the watering. Overenthusiastic watering will swamp young plants, leading to tears later on.

Give older children an idea of how long those big seeds should take to germinate, sprout leaves and produce flowers or fruits. Check off days on a calendar or whiteboard to help manage expectations. Sometimes the longest days are those just before flower buds open or edible crops are ready to harvest. Keep frustration at bay by letting children draw or photograph their young plants each day.

When harvest time finally arrives, celebrate. Invite friends over to see the culmination of all the gardening effort. Harvest and prepare the edible crops and have the young growers help as they are able. Take pictures of both children and crops and cherish the occasion. Remember that the child who plants sunflowers today may end up as a horticulturist in a few short years.

Sunflowers at the end of the season
Collect sunflower seeds at the end of the season for spring planting the following year!