Kids love to see things grow. But while children love to be out and about in nature, there are some pitfalls that can put a damper on their enthusiasm. The biggest way to avoid problems is to keep your gardening sessions short. Kids have notoriously short attention spans and, contrary to what you may believe, there is such as thing as too much of a good thing.

Safety in the Garden

• Sunburn: Because gardening takes place outdoors, the sun can pose a huge problem when gardening with kids. Take into account the time of day and the duration your child is in the garden. Mid-day in the garden without shade offers little respite from the sun’s burning rays and should be avoided. Use sunscreen with a high SPF count, wear gardening hats and try to keep gardening times to before 11 AM in the morning and after 6 PM in the evening.
  
• Overheating and dehydration: To avoid overheating and dehydration, end your gardening on the porch with a nice cold glass of lemonade. Introduce your child to a few culinary delights from the herb garden and at the same time make a game out of teaching your budding gardener the official names of each flower or herb she comes in contact with. At the end of each lesson, let your child pick a bouquet of flowers and herbs, but only the ones that she recognizes and can name correctly.
  
  • Mint leaves from the herb garden will add zip to a glass of lemonade.
    
  • A handful of sun-kissed berries from the strawberry patch go with anything—perhaps you could serve strawberry shortcake for dinner.
    
  • A bouquet of daisies or pansies makes a gorgeous centerpiece for the dinner table.
    
• Garden tools: Do not hand out garden tools to children. Instead, show kids the best way to pull weeds by hand. Explain the differences between flower or vegetable seedlings and weeds and turn weeding into a game. Bring along one pail for each child. Then see how many weeds each can pull in a short amount of time—with supervision, of course. Let the winner decide which vegetables should be picked for dinner.
  
• Lead contamination: Gardening is dirty work, so expect kids to get dirty. Gloves will help, but nothing works better than a lot of soap and water. As soon as you leave the garden, certainly, before you allow the kids to eat, everyone needs to wash and wash well because soil can be contaminated with lead, it’s best to have your soil tested prior to allowing children to work in the garden.