Children in the Kitchen Garden

One of the memories of my early childhood in England just after the second world war is a small patch of earth that I could claim as “mine”, and the tousled greenery of my carefully tended carrots. Grandad was a farmer a long way out in the country, but here at the back of our house in the middle of the town was my very own farm!

As the decades have passed, children in towns have increasingly come to think of their food as coming from a supermarket, ready-wrapped in sterile plastic. Its true origin has largely been hidden. It is therefore gratifying to observe the trend toward including gardening in the activities of early school years.

More and more schools are starting school gardens. Children are learning how to grow a variety of vegetables, and recent research in the USA has shown that as a consequence they are eating more of them – a welcome trend away from the junk-food culture. Long may it continue.

Teaching children gardening, and getting them actively and enthusiastically involved in growing both flowers and vegetables for the kitchen has other educational benefits. It helps with many aspects of the basic science curriculum. The life-cycle of plants of many kinds are actually seen and experienced rather than being merely boring pages in a textbook.

Chemistry is brought to life, and the pseudo-scientific nonsense of “chemical free” growing is countered as kids learn that the garden compost is actually a rich cocktail of complex chemicals, produced by natural processes and containing elements needed for a further round of plant life. They’ll learn also that not all things “natural” are safe; that some plants produce chemical poisons and are not to be eaten, just as others produce chemicals essential to our healthy living.

Simple gardening projects can help teach the skills of planning, measuring and recording. Analysis of the results can include arithmetic and other mathematical methods such as the creation of graphs and charts. Detailed observation of the structure of plants can be translated into art work. Furthermore, in an age of immediate gratification the weeks of waiting between seedtime and harvest teaches patience.

Teaching gardening to children can in these ways and more have major beneficial impacts on their educational development and their learning of basic life-skills. Long may it increase, both at home and at school.

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