What's better than getting your hands dirty by planting flowers and veggies that your family can enjoy all Summer long? Getting your kids in on the garden action, too! Not only is gardening a great way to get your kids out of the house and away from those pesky screens, but it also teaches them responsibility (plants have to be tended, after all) and about the magic of nature, where a tiny seed can become a giant pumpkin, a beautiful flower, or a crop of cherry tomatoes. How cool is that?!
Start your child's gardening journey with one of the following 20 items, from kid-size garden tools, wheelbarrows, and greenhouses to creative ways to add some kid fun to your green space (fairy houses and butterfly posts are sure to pique their interest). If you're a garden novice yourself, try a growing kit designed for kids, and you'll both learn how to make your garden flourish.
Williams Sonoma's Kids Garden Kit ($23) provides everything you need to teach children to grow flowers, herbs, and vegetables from seeds. Each kit contains a grow tray with seed-growing pellets, reusable tea bags, three seed packets, and easy growing instructions.
Clever Kid Toys' Garden Tool Set ($19, originally $29) comes with a sturdy tote bag, a kid-size shovel, a rake, a fork, and a watering can.
Seeds of Adventure's My First Garden in a Box ($18) is a game and a gardening kit in one. In it, you'll find 10 vegetable non-GMO seeds, including lettuce, radish, carrots, and tomatoes; customizable plant name sticks and stickers; and a magnetic board that allows kids to track the growth of their plants while providing instructions and milestones along the way.
Author Kate Messner's Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt ($11, originally $18) lets kids discover the "wonders that lie hidden between stalks, under the shade of leaves, and down in the dirt." Christopher Silas Neal's illustrations add to the fun.
Little Tikes' Garden Table ($47) introduces the youngest kids to gardening through play. The set includes four flower pots, soil discs, flowers, a rake, a working watering can, and a basin that can hold water, drain plug included.
Creativity For Kids' Plant a Pizza Garden ($19) is a cute kit that lets kids plant basil, peppers, oregano, and tomato seeds — all the ingredients for a delicious pizza. The kit comes with a sturdy chipboard pizza tray, a plastic planting tray with drain holes, seeds, potting mix, stickers, a puffy sticker crust, growing instructions, and a pizza recipe for once your ingredients grow.
Add some fairy magic to your garden with this Fairy Village House and Fairies ($25-$139). Designed with five different nature themes (acorn, pine cone, mushroom, honeycomb, and tulip), the houses have intricate woodland details and are fully enclosed to keep out unwanted critters. Add a set of five weather-resistant resin, hand-painted fairies (choose boys or girls) to add even more whimsy to your garden.
Author Lois Ehlert's Planting a Rainbow ($15, originally $18) helps children understand how to plant bulbs, seeds, and seedlings and nurture their growth.
Williams Sonoma's Butterfly Garden Seed Kit ($30) helps moms and kids attract butterflies to the garden with an assortment of nectar-producing flowers, including nasturtium, corn poppy, purple coneflower, zinnia, lupine, and cosmos. The kit also includes coco fiber pots for starting seeds, soil pellets, wooden plant markers, and growing instructions.
Miracle-Gro Kids' My Very Own Flower Garden ($22) comes with a tin planter, garden markers for decorating flower-identifying signs, paint pots, and three packs of flower seeds (cosmos, zinnia, and marigold).
Teenie Greenie's board book The Little Gardener ($5, originally $7) lets little ones discover what it takes to grow a garden. Lift the flaps to find out how to create and care for your very own flowers and more.
Start growing your kid's green thumb with this Children's Garden Tool Set ($24), which includes a cute and colorful watering can, shovel, rake, and hoe, all sized for smaller hands, and a sturdy canvas bag to keep those tools organized.
VegTrug's kid-size potting bench ($134) has a flat work surface for seed starting and working with potted plants. Lift off the top, and there's a storage compartment, perfect for holding gardening supplies, and a polyethylene planting tray to keep the planting mix contained. A lower shelf adds more storage space.
Toysmith's Garden Root Viewer ($11) lets children plant and watch their own little garden grow. The kit comes with a wooden stand, three plastic root viewers, seeds, and detailed planting instructions.
Ray Padula's four-piece garden set ($15) includes a cloth garden bag, trowel, cultivator, shovel, and spray bottle.
Just For Kids' wheelbarrow and garden tool set ($29) includes a metal wheelbarrow set that functions like the real thing but gets some extra balance from an extra leg stand. A three-piece tool set lets kids help work in the garden.
Designed to fit on a windowsill, the Grow-Up Greenhouse Kit ($30) comes with 25 peat pellets and six seed packets, including perennials (bee balm, cone flower, and daisies to attract butterflies) and miniature veggies (cherry tomatoes, bush cucumbers, and little pumpkins). The kit features a wooden frame with plastic windows and a hinged top for easy watering and growing.
Let your kids add their own personal touch to the garden with these Garden Stackable Totems ($30), which feature a colorful collection of movable resin ornaments in heart, butterfly, or frog themes.
Available through Williams Sonoma, Urban Kid's Sunflower Garden Kit ($45) contains sunflower seeds, organic soil, cotton gloves, a trowel, and a recycled tea bag planter. Fill the planter with soil, plant and water the seeds, and watch the flowers come to life.
Take the gardening fun indoors with Creativity for Kids' Wee Enchanted Fairy Garden ($20), an easy-to-use gardening kit that lets kids create their own little grass garden with fun decorative elements like ceramic mushrooms, wire butterflies, colorful stones, and a sweet fairy figurine.