Designing a Kid’s Garden: By Seed or Plant

Kids want results. They want results in their gardens and they normally want it fast. When designing the garden for you and the kids, keep in mind the way your kids will react when they are told that it can take a long time to see any growth. Deciding how to start the garden is a very important step in planning a kid’s garden.

There are two ways kids can start the garden, by seed or by plants or transplants. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Seed

Seeds are fun to plant especially for the younger kids who love to dig their hands down in the dirt. They are normally less costly than their counterparts, the transplants.

Seeds are fun to start even outside. Some plants such as carrots are better started as seeds as they don’t do well at all as transplants.

One advantage of planting by seed is your kids get to see the plant grow from a tiny little seed and continue to observe it throughout its whole life cycle. Another advantage would be that seeds are hardy little things and can withstand some extreme conditions such as a mild drop in temperature and some weather conditions such as heavy rain.

The main disadvantage with planting the kid’s garden by seed is that it takes more time for the plant and garden to mature. Kids might be impatient and want to move onto something else that gives instant gratification. If this happens, perhaps plants are the best way to start.

Plants

Starting by plants speeds up the gardening process for the most part. There are two options with plants: starting your own plants (inside) before the garden season or ordering and buying plants.

They are commonly called transplants because you have to usually transplant them into bigger containers once you receive them or they get big enough, sometimes too big for the current container they are in.

The main advantages for starting by plants are time and convenience. It is rather time consuming to wait for the plant to grow from a seed. The kids will see results instantly when they have plants.

The main disadvantage to starting by plants is that sometimes even plants may die due to transplant shock. Transplant shock can severely hurt the health of a plant. It is commonly caused by planting in the wrong soil type, wrong weather conditions and not hardening it off. Hardening it off means to get it used to the temperatures and climate outside in its final growing spot. If proper procedures for transplanting are followed, then shock is minimal.

Where Can I Buy Seeds and Plants?

Park’s Gardens
The Cook’s Gardens
Territorial Seed Company
Burpee

You can buy seeds and plants just about anywhere these days. Main chain stores and home and garden stores will definitely carry seeds. Home and garden stores and local greenhouses and nurseries will have plants. The above links are a few places online that you can buy seeds and transplants.

-Katina Mooneyham