Tips and Tricks for Starting Seeds With Kids

I’m celebrating Earth Day with Stonyfield Yogurt and High Mowing Organic Seeds. As a 2015 Stonyfield Yogurt Ambassador, I was sent seeds by High Mowing Organic Seeds to facilitate this blog post.  All opinions are my own. 

Because of my laid back parenting style, there are very few things that I fight with my kids about. Sure, I fight for their character- I want them to be respectful, excellent listeners, and to think about the needs of others often. But I hardly ever fight with them over what to wear to school or about food. My kids are both excellent eaters. Both Lola and Malone love a wide variety of foods and enjoy food shopping with me. I’ve found that they’re more willing and exciting about trying something new if they’ve found a personal connection with it.

Which is why I’m trying something new this year, a garden. I didn’t grow up with parents who kept a garden and I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know much about it. But this spring Malone asked if we could plant a few things and I’m down for trying just about anything once.

Tips and Tricks for Starting Seeds With Kids

1. Gather your materials and get your seeds. 

We’re starting our seeds in Stonyfield yogurt cups and a cute little planter set I picked up. Not pictured in this photo is our soil and watering can. I poked holes in the bottoms of my yogurt cups so the water could drain as needed.

Our seeds came from High Mowing Organic Seeds. They’re organic and they’ve never sold genetically modified seeds. 

2. Let your kids be as hands on as possible. 

Malone’s first job was to peel the labels off of the cups. He also helped scoop the dirt into the cups and watered the starter cups after he had planted the seeds.

3. Talk about the kinds of seeds you’re planting and what you’re going to do when it can be harvested. 

This is food they are growing. What kind of recipes will you make together? Will you share some of your harvest with friends and family?

4. Remind them that growing food from a seed is a process. Get a journal for them and help them to record their observations throughout the process. Make predictions and keep a record of how the seeds change into plants!

5. Finally, talk about what you’ll do with your seeds after they sprout and start planning your garden! 

We still aren’t 100% sure where our garden will be but we had a blast planting our seeds!

I know I have a ton to learn about starting seeds and gardening. Lucky for me, High Mowing has a great blog. I loved this one about creating a functional theme garden for kids. 

Are you planting a garden? In the past, we’ve always been farmers market kinds of people.