Easy fruit / veg to grow with kids

Gardener Neil

Hi, this is my first post. I'm a complete newbie to gardening, recently moved into a house with an extensive flowered garden. I know nothing about gardening.

Today I created a raised bed which is going to be for the kids to get involved with growing fruit and veg.





 I got some strawberry things from garden centre which come in a dry bag which three miniature strawberry plants. Not seen these before, are these good to start with?

Has anyone got any tips of what fruit/veg we could grow that would be great for the kids? 

The soil in the bed is what was there originally, I got two bags of top soil from tesco to add on top, is this good to use?

Any help is greatly wanted!

Thank you.

Quercusrobur81

Looks great! Potatoes are easy and good fun to dig out, my two enjoy rummaging around to find them. I add lots of rotted manure to our raised beds and some blood fish bone before we plant any veg seeds. Afraid I don’t know about strawberries...

Posy

Hello, Neil. I'm a bit worried that you haven't much room in  that bed, especially if you had to leave all the tree root in place. You could put in the strawberries  - it's a sunny position, I guess - but not much more. My grandchildren loved growing spuds and carrots in containers, and peas that they could pick and eat off the plant. They liked tiny tomatoes too.

Gardener Neil

elspethscott said:

Looks great! Potatoes are easy and good fun to dig out,

Potatoes are another plan with another section of vegetable patch I have, this is work in progress at the mo..

Gardener Neil

Posy said:

Hello, Neil. I'm a bit worried that you haven't much room in  that bed

yeah there's not much room but we wanted to grow something in that bed as it's easily accessible for the kidies, i have another veg garden (see photo above) that I have raspberries in that have been here since we moved in, I'm making that good as well.

josusa47

Children experience timescales differently from us, the older you get, the quicker the time passes.  So it's good to grow the quickest yielding crops, I believe radishes go from sowing seed to eating crop faster than anything else.  You don't mention their ages, if they are very young, it might be better to get them growing microsalads on a windowsill, which are quicker still.

Gardener Neil

josusa47   You don't mention their ages, if they are very young, it might be better to get them growing microsalads on a windowsill, which are quicker still.

They are 3 and 5. Micro salads, not heard of them. We domnt really have space for indoor growing unfortunately.

Gardener Neil

What am I best mixing into the soil to make it the best it can be?

Blue Onion

Get a few bags of general purpose garden compost to mix in, along with some fish, blood, and bone meal.  

My boys (7 and 4) love fresh peas straight from the garden, as well as soft fruits and grapes, etc.  They do complain that the carrots are 'too carrot-y', and prefer the one's from the shop.  Radishes grow fast.. but I have yet to meet a kid who likes eating them (or salad, or any other veg for that matter).  Grow what they love.  I let the boys go with me to the garden center and pick out a few packs of seed of what they would like to grow.  Typically its flowers, oddly enough.  

If if you want veg, you really need full sun.  Things grown for the leaf, like kale or salad crops, will do okay in part sun.  You might do better with some fruit bushes, like currents, etc.  

Gardener Neil

Thank you

Allotment Boy

@Blue Onion  said " but I have yet to meet a kid who likes eating them (or salad, or any other veg for that matter)."
You have not met my Grandchildren then they all love salad and veg & I have taught them all to grow it too. The older ones have lost interest in the growing part now but I am sure they will come back to it in later years.
Micro salads are just fancy mustard & cress grow it the same way takes almost no space.  Peas are always a favourite french beans will work well too. Radishes grow fast & if picked young will not be too peppery. I find the younger ones are more adventurous than the older ones taste wise. My GC's love salad rocket.