Do you want your children to be more active, out in the fresh air and eating more vegetables? If so, it's time to get their wellies on. Sarah Marriott reports
Many parents know their families should be eating healthier food but the days of forcing kids to eat their greens are long gone, so how can we encourage children to eat more fruit and veg? What about encouraging them to grow their own lunch?
"It's a slow transition but kids are willing to try things more easily if they've grown them themselves," says Aisling O'Connor, a gardener involved with schools projects. She finds that children are happy to replace packets of crisps with mangetout or strawberries eaten straight from the bush if they've been involved in the growing process.
The trick is to make gardening fun and do interesting things, she says. "Children absolutely love wormeries. They like the gross-out aspect of worms. Even girls who might be a bit squeamish love to hate them. In a glass-fronted wormery, they can see the process of worms working in channels, with feed going in at the top and compost coming out at the bottom. They think it's cool that worms eat 100 times their own bodyweight every day and can transform their own waste into compost. Anything creepy-crawly is popular. In the spring, the kids have to collect slugs and throw them over the fence; for the boys, handling the gory stuff is all about bravado."
As part of her work with Fermanagh-Leitrim Organic Co-operation (partly funded by Peace 2 Co-operation Ireland), O'Connor holds gardening classes in schools in disadvantaged areas, where some children aren't familiar with fresh vegetables. "I took a pea straight from the pod and gave it to a little girl, who asked me if she had to put the pea in the tin before eating it."
Children enjoy seeing the direct relationship between their action and the final result. "When they sow a bean and it germinates in 10 days, then they follow the plant at each stage."
O'Connor recommends using big seeds such as beans, peas, courgette and pumpkin as they are easier for young children to handle; along with onion and garlic sets or potatoes. Parents who want to garden with their children should start small with just a few plants, advises O'Connor. "If you're growing in the ground, make skinny raised beds small enough for children to be able to reach across. And make clear paths so they know where to walk and where to garden."
Starting in containers is a good idea - and you don't have to spend lots of money. "Improvise with materials. I grew potatoes in a tyre and carrots in a half-barrel in one school that didn't have much land. Or start with something simple, like growing cress on dampened tissue." Most vegetables will grow in containers: try dwarf beans or sugar-snap peas in a pot, tumbling tomatoes in a hanging basket, lettuce or strawberries in a grow bag, and herbs on a window sill.
Nature is full of surprises and anything with a "wow" factor is popular with kids, such as eating flowers. "They think it's funny but they like snacking on borage flowers because they're so sweet," says O'Connor. "They ask me if it's okay to eat a flower if a bee has been on it."
Some varieties of vegetable are more interesting than others; kids like colourful alternatives to everyday veg, such as purple mangetout and purple Arran Victory potatoes. "I choose chioggia beetroot as the inside has concentric circles of cerise pink and white; kids don't expect a vegetable to look like that. Some pumpkins are very popular because of their knobbly shapes, colours and stripes."
To encourage children to eat the unfamiliar vegetables they have grown, use them in a blended soup, juice or smoothie. With her school groups, O'Connor dresses up as Dracula and makes a blood-red juice from beetroot, then lets the kids smear it on their faces.
Gardening is one way of getting children away from computer screens and into the garden for some exercise and fresh air. Boys who are a little wild respond well to the physicality of gardening. "They love doing something energetic, like digging or weeding and using big tools," says O'Connor. "The most important thing is to let children get their hands dirty. Give them old clothes to put on and let them get stuck in."
Learn more: Gardening with Children by Kim Wilde (Collins); Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy (Workman).
Next week: A taste of summer