No one is too small to be a gardener!

Is there anything better than watching plants grow? Harvesting your own tomatoes? Digging up crunchy carrots? And: to nibble on them right away after a quick swish through the well? Author Florina Schwander thinks so: No. Here are her tips for gardening with children, on the windowsill, balcony or in your own garden.
Text: Florina Schwander

Image: Adobe Stock

As soon as the first green tips of hyacinths peek out of our plant box, my five-year-old daughter asks at least three times a day: «Mum, can we go plant something?» «Mummy, is there anything to weed?» «Mum, I think the plants are thirsty!» My eldest got her first own planter box this season and is eager to get started. She has her own gardening set with a mini watering can.

I can also slowly let her three-year-old brothers join in without them tearing out all the seedlings in a fierce weeding fervour. Or tearing off any green leaves and holding them under my nose - they could be peppermint.

Tips for gardening with children:

  • I share my daughter's impatience and would love to get started with sowing and so on. And yet I have a few gardening seasons behind me and know: I wait until the ice saints are over (usually in mid-May) and only then do I really start sowing and planting outside.
  • Until we get started outdoors, I prepare a few things indoors: tomatoes are easy to grow from seeds, and cress is also a great way to pass the time as it grows so quickly. Around Easter, I always plant a few daffodil and tulip bulbs in glass vases so that we have beautiful, long-lasting flowers in the parlour. In glass containers, the root life of the bulbs also looks very exciting for the kids.
  • For better or worse, I've banned a few poisonous plants from my pots. I'll probably only plant the beautiful and simple dattura and the highly poisonous angel's trumpet again in my retirement home. It's worth taking a look at the list of highly poisonous species(here, for example).
We looked for, visited and admired the swallowtail caterpillar every day last year.
  • Plants that thrive (and taste good) in pots or raised beds on our balcony: Carrots, tomatoes (especially small varieties), pumpkins, cucumbers (especially the small snake cucumbers), all varieties of peppermint, coriander, verbena, courgettes, radishes (don't let them get too big, otherwise the children will find them too spicy), lettuce, potatoes, all berries, especially strawberries and raspberries, tulips and other bulb flowers for the start of spring, mallows, snapdragons, sunflowers and marigolds, coneflowers and, of course, dahlias.
This is what my daughter's deep raised bed currently looks like: Daffodils and tulips in bloom, wild strawberries and violets from last year and lots of freshly buried seeds and mint cuttings.
  • This gardening season I want to try my hand at home-made fertiliser, so I've been collecting coffee grounds for months and eggshells are also ending up in the watering can. You can find tips on this at Gartentipps.com, for example.
  • Whenever a flower has faded or is otherwise suitable, I collect the seeds from the plants to keep them in my seed bank at home. I think my children are extremely fascinated by the fact that they get to see the whole cycle. Nasturtiums and marigolds, for example, are also very suitable for this, as the little balls are easy for children to collect.
  • If the little gardeners want to continue planting in the evening, why not massage a garden on their backs: first loosen the soil, then pull out the seed tracks, then press in the individual seeds, then shovel them in again and finally water them.

Six book tips for gardening with children:

The book is a wonderful work for all children and parents with green thumbs and hearts. It provides explanations about the cycle of nature and the craft ideas make you want to try them out straight away.

The book Kindergarten: Plant Portraits, Recipes, Craft Projects and Experiments by Gesa Sander was published by AT Verlag in 2019 and is available in stores for approx. 30 Fr.

As we have plants on the balcony on the one hand and a raised bed on the other, I recommend these two books with specific ideas for these two places.

Particularly suitable for beginners: Fresh from the raised bed: The practical book. The book by the city gardeners is published by EMF Verlag and is available in shops for around 25 Fr.

Great tips for urban gardening on the balcony with ideas for vertical gardening or creative watering tips.

The book Mein kreativer Stadtbalkon by Silvia Appel was published in a new edition by EMF Verlag in 2019 and is available in stores for approx. 32 Fr.

The large gardening book always provides us with new ideas, and I often let the children choose a project. Almost everything is photographed and described in detail!

The big gardening book for children was published by Haupt-Verlag in 2014 and is available in shops for approx. 39 Fr.

This book is recommended for anyone who gets bored in the garden: The Superlabor Outdoor has 25 cool experiments for little inventors up its sleeve. And such a self-made worm house can also be practical for the garden!

Superlabor Outdoor by Robert Winston was published by Dorling Kindersley in 2019 and is available in stores for approx. 25 Fr.

This Icelandic children's book can still be ordered via Amazon and is out of print in many places. Understandable, because the story is adorable! What do you do when an old woman has to move from the country to the city? You bring the farm onto your balcony ...

The Green Grandmother by Ingibjörg Sigurðardóttir can be ordered second-hand for approx. 25 Fr. on Amazon.


Tip: If your own garden is too expensive or you simply don't have the space, you can also garden in other people's gardens. There are community projects such as the Hardturm stadium wasteland in Zurich, some school gardens or community centres offer raised beds to join in, or you can at least pick your own strawberries in a field.

These pictures of her daughter harvesting radishes make author Florina Schwander 's heart beat faster. It's also worth the grumbling during the extensive hand washing afterwards, including scrubbing fingernails.