• Gardening with kids is a family educational activity.little gardener image by Renata Osinska from Fotolia.com
  
  In our fast-paced consumer world, it is nice to step back with our children and dig in the dirt, demonstrating that before carrots and radishes and flowers got to the supermarket, they were grown from earth, water and sunshine. Whether in an outdoor plot or indoor window box, gardening with children can be a fun, healthy, productive family or school activity.
  
  

Thinning Carrots

• Plant carrot seeds in mid-spring in outdoor garden plots, or any time of year in a window box filled with potting soil in a sunny window indoors. Have children plant seeds at 1/2-inch intervals, in two rows 6 inches apart, and water daily until carrot tops emerge. The University of Illinois Extension recommends planting to a depth of about 1/4 inch. When the tops are 3 inches high, have the children thin one row to 3 inches apart; leave the other row unthinned. Continue watering once a week. Harvest carrots from the thinned row when their shoulders poke above the soil surface. Pull a few from the unthinned row to assess the difference, then thin that second row and allow the carrots to keep growing to maturity.
  
  

Scented Garden

• The University of Florida IFAS Extension notes that giving kids their own gardening space fosters independence and responsibility. One way to extend that independence is to have children grow scented herbs which can then be dried for sachets for holiday gifts. The Florida Extension suggests thyme, rosemary, sage, and an array of scented geraniums, all of which are easy to grow and can be started from nursery-purchased plants and then expanded by cuttings. Have children plant the starts in their garden plot, then carefully snip one leaf or stem from each plant and root them indoors in small cups of water. Once roots start growing, transplant the cutting to a small pot with potting soil. Keep the cutting growing in a sunny window indoors to be transplanted to the garden plot the following growing season. Harvest the plants from the garden plot in late summer by cutting them down to the ground; hang them upside down in a dry place to dry, then have the child gardener strip the leaves from the stems, crush them and mix up their own select scent combinations.
  
  

Winter Garden Poster

• The University of Florida Extension encourages kids to consider the beauty of a garden as they plan their plantings. Making a poster of your children's garden plot from seed-catalog and gardening magazine images helps bring that beauty indoors in winter. Go through gardening catalogs and magazines with your children and have them brainstorm about all the things they'd love to grow. Cut out pictures for each crop, then arrange them on poster board based on growing habits and light requirements. Adjust until the desired crops fit in your garden; this may require hard decisions, like doing away with beets to grow pumpkins. Glue the final crop choices to the poster board then have the children draw around the pictures with markers. Hang the poster up, and think of spring.