My Top 10 Choices For Seeds to Sow With Kids

Sowing any seeds with your kids is a great thing to do. Whatever you grow together, the time you spend in your garden will be highly educational. It can help kids learn vital skills for the future, and feel more connected to the natural world. And it can be a lot of fun.

Sowing seeds with kids can also sow seeds for the future of humanity. It can be an important step in creating citizens who understand the importance of nature and take the necessary action to protect it.

If you are gardening with kids for the first time, especially if you are learning alongside them, you might wonder which seeds to select. As a garden designer, here are my top ten choices for the best seeds to sow with kids:

Cut-and-Come-Again Lettuce

Lettuce might not be their favorite food to eat. But it can be a great introduction to gardening. Cut-and-come-again lettuce, which you can continue to harvest throughout the season, comes in many different varieties. You can grow some even in the smallest of spaces, and it can be one of the easiest things to grow.

One reason why this can be such a great seed to sow with kids is that cut-and-come-again lettuces can provide a yield remarkably quickly. You could be cutting off a few leaves to eat in salads in as little as four to six weeks! So kids will quickly be able to see the fruits of their labors.

Radishes

Radishes are another quick crop – great for kids (and adults) who need to see results to stay enthused. These too can be pretty easy to grow and won't take up much space. And the seeds are relatively easy to handle for little fingers.

Sow few seeds and often so you can continue to enjoy your radish crop over a longer period. And consider letting one or two plants go to seed, so your kids can see the bees and other pollinators visiting the flowers – and can have fun harvesting the abundant radish pods later in the year.

Rainbow Chard

Rainbow chard is another great crop for smaller spaces. It can find a place in vegetable gardens large or small. This is another fantastic option for beginners. Kids will find the seeds relatively easy to handle, and may well love the brightly colored stems.

These colorful plants can also be cheerful and engaging and their "rainbow" appeal can help in getting kids to eat their "greens." When greens are not all entirely green, they may seem somewhat more appealing.

Peas

Peas are very easy to handle. Even for the smallest fingers, the large seeds are straightforward to sow. Kids seem to love the little "grapple hooks" peas send out as they climb their branch supports. They enjoy harvesting the pods as well as the sweet garden peas straight from the plants later in the season.

Peas are one of the best plants to choose for a "grazing garden," where kids can learn about where food comes from by picking crops themselves from the garden beds.

Beans

Beans of various types can also be great choices for many family gardens. Like peas, the large seeds can be managed for even very young children to handle and plant.

Climbing beans can also be trained up supports to make the walls of a den structure for kids to play in – this can be a great feature to include in a child-friendly garden.

Cucumbers

Cucumbers are another climbing plant to consider adding alongside climbing beans. These too can be used to create a den or provide shade for a play area. Kids often enjoy seeing how these can be trained to grow up their supports. And this is also another seed that is fairly easy for kids to handle – not too small and fiddly to work with.

Summer Squash

Summer squash like zucchini are also great seeds to sow with kids. Their large leaves and colorful fruits can be intriguing and full of interest and drama – and the flowers are bright (and edible) as well. Prolific yields can mean that kids stay enthusiastic about home growing over the summer months, with plenty of rewards for their efforts.

Again, seeds are relatively easy to handle. Consider choosing some interesting heritage varieties with different shapes and colors. Variety can help maintain biodiversity and make sure you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Variety also helps keep kids engaged.

Pumpkins / Winter Squash

Kids also tend to love getting invested in growing pumpkins or winter squash for Halloween. They will have an entirely better experience if, instead of just carving a pumpkin for Halloween, they are actually able to grow their own from seed, and see fruits grow to maturity.

Growing your own Halloween pumpkins or winter squash from seed this spring can be a fun project that can continue to pay off throughout the year. Kids might even scratch their name or a face into a young pumpkin or squash and watch it expand as it grows.

Nasturtiums

A great companion plant for many gardens, nasturtiums are another great choice for sowing with kids. These are not only easy plants to grow in many situations, but they have beautiful flowers that are an edible crop in their own right. You can eat the flowers, the leaves, the seed pods, and obtain a range of other yields from these useful plants.

Sunflowers

Sunflowers are another great choice. Like many of the other options on this list, they are suitable for a wide range of gardens and are relatively easy to handle, sow and grow. Kids love "racing" sunflowers to see whose will grow the fastest and tallest. They offer drama and big rewards, for both humans and wildlife (easy birdseed!), with large and colorful flowers. They are also a good flower to plant in a vegetable plot or kitchen garden.

Of course, there are many, many other seeds to consider for gardening with kids – but the above ideas are a good place to start.