Spring Gardening with Children: Best Vegetables to Grow with Kids

Every year, we plant some vegetables in our garden at the start of spring.

Even when we only had a small space in our garden, we had in our garden to place planters and pots, to grow some vegetables.

Children love sowing seeds and watering. They love it even more when plants start to grow day by day.

And they get a real excitement and a sense of achievement when vegetables are harvested in their own little vegetable garden!

Growing your own vegetable is the best way for children to learn values of food AND get them to start eating more vegetables!

But looking after a large field of vegetables can be  a hard work at the same time as looking after little children.

So I chose below a few best plants I like growing with children. These can be grown in a small space and are easy for beginner gardener.

Choice 1: Radish

Radish are perhaps the easiest and fastest grown garden vegetables.

Small red radish can be harvested in 30 days after sowing seeds in warm season.

You do not need much space to grow these radish; a long planter can accommodate two rows of radish easily.

After sowing seeds, they start germinating after only a few days, and they grow fast day by day.

Because they grow so fast, children do not get board of watching and watering them everyday.

One thing to be careful though, when the base of the radish plant start to become round, children get more and more urge to pick them.

So when they start to say “I think they are ready, can I pick them!?!?”, you have to stay firm and tell them to wait.

While growing radish is a real exciting experience, not many children would say “I love radish! Radish are my most favorite food!”.

One of the best way to eat radish with children is to cook them in a miso soup. You can wash and chop up both radish root and leaves, to eat the whole thing.

You can also make a pickled radish by slicing radish root and marinating them for a few hours in some sushi-vinegar. (Sushi-vinegar is mild and sweet so many children can eat pickles using sushi-vinegar).

Mixed radish from our vegetable garden last autumn.

Choice 2: Cherry tomatoes

Growing vegetables in your garden costs some money for fertilizers and seeds. So often it is cheaper to buy vegetables rather than growing them.

But out of many vegetables, apparently tomatoes are easy to get the value back.

This is because tomato plant if grown right, bears many fruit over the summer and the retail price of tomatoes being more expensive than many other vegetables.

Especially easier tomatoes to grow is cherry tomatoes.

Their fruits are smaller and faster to mature. It is fun to watch them flower, grow in size and start to change color in the sun.

Growing well! Pot-planted cherry tomatoes.

You can grow cherry tomatoes from seeds, but they can also be grown from seedlings.

Some grafted tomato seedlings are very strong against disease and especially easy to grow.

So you may like to buy grafted tomato seedling from a local gardening store; better seedlings to start with, easier and more successful it will be for beginners.

Note that some type of tomatoes grow like a tree or mini-bush, while others will stay pot-sized.

Depending on the space available in your garden, you should choose the type of tomatoes or cherry tomatoes to raise.

Choice 3: Strawberries

Kids love strawberries. If you plant them, you can enjoy pick-your own strawberries in your very garden!

Strawberry flowers are white with round petals, yellow in the middle. So they are very nice to watch.

As flowers will bloom one after the other and it is a great fun for children to watch the middle part of strawberry flower enlarge gradually, eventually starting to turn red.

They are easy and fast to mature, so children will not get bored; instead, they will be checking them every day, saying “are they ready yet!”

Strawberries are grown from seedlings that are available from local gardening stores.

You can grow them on a field, or in planters and pots.

In New Zealand, you can enjoy strawberry fruits growing from spring till summer.

If you plant one- or two- strawberry seedlings, you will not have enough strawberries to feed the whole family, but will be enough to enjoy watching them grow.

If you want to get more serious and grow enough to eat, you apparently need 5x plants per person in your family.

I found the following website useful for learning how to grow strawberries.

 https://www.palmers.co.nz/top-10-tips-for-growing-strawberries/

Finally, if growing strawberry yourself is not right, how about picking your own strawberries in a farm?

There are many ”Pick your own strawberry" farms throughout New Zealand. They usually are open to public people to pick their own strawberry over the summer.

Choice of Tree: Citrus (Orange, Lemon, Mandarin)

If you want to grow a fruit tree, easy and highly recommended are citrus trees.

They are relatively easy to grow, and once the tree reaches certain size, they will bear many fruits.

Some fruits trees like blueberries require two or more of different types of trees to be planted together to bear fruits. But this does not apply to citrus.

Citrus flowers are white and small, but very cute in appearance too.

If you plant lemon tree, you can make lemonades with children using lemon they picked themselves.

Or you can just eat it fresh if you plant a mandarin or orange tree. Either way, children love picking fruits off the tree!

Small seedlings are weak against insects, so do look after them properly when you just planted a seedling.

Once my friend had a mandarin tree completely stripped off leaves by voracious caterpillars.

Small citrus trees for planting are available from local gardening stores.

Make sure to purchase a seedling tree from proper gardening store; grafted seedling grown by professionals start bearing fruits much earlier than a random seedlings that have grown from fruit seeds.

Spring Gardening with Children＊Summary

So above are my favorite and recommendation of plants for gardening with children.

• Choice 1:Radish
• Choice 2:Cherry tomatoes
• Choice 3: Strawberry
• Choice 4: Citrus tree

I think the key points for picking what to plant when you are trying to enjoy gardening with children are:

• Easy to grow = kids can help, less chance of sad failure
• Fast to grow = kids do not get bored watching plant grow
• Edible and Easy to eat =Good education for kids to learn where food come from

I also grow some herbs in my garden. While I personally love them, herbs all look the same “green” and this does not interest children very much.

Sometimes I pick them and let children smell, and they say “nice smell!!” but that’s about it.

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Auckland Nature Park: Let’s go to Western Springs Park!

Last weekend, we visited the Western Springs Park, one of great nature parks in Auckland.

It is a great place to have a picnic throughout the year, but especially in the spring – early summer because you can see baby geese and swans!

Where is the Western Springs Park?

The Western springs park is located next to the famous Auckland Zoo. Address of the park is 731 Great North Road.

It is right next to SH16, Northern-Western Motorway.

It takes approximately 10 minutes by car from Auckland CBD.

There is a bus stop right outside the Western springs park, where several different buses stop at.

It may take around 30 minutes of travel and changing buses, if you travel from Auckland CBD to the western springs park by public transport.

The Western springs park is popular place to visit throughout the year; both local families and oversea visitors come to enjoy the beautiful park and wild life in the park.

Animals you can meet in the Western Springs Park

In the Western springs park, there are many wild life flourishing around the lake.

These include native birds, like Pukeko and black swan.

Children love to see the close, and photographers love taking close-up photographs of them.

Birds like Pukeko are rare overseas and many oversea visitors enjoy meeting them here in the Western springs park.

While the park contains plenty of natural resources and food that birds can eat, it is not forbidden to feed these birds in the park.

You should feed them on land and not in water, as remaining food in water will easily spoil the water.

But otherwise, if you bring a bag of old bread, you will have an awesome time feeding these birds throughout the park.

Birds are everywhere in the Western springs park.

Here are some of birds we encountered this trip.

Pukeko: Porphyrio melanotus

Native to New Zealand, Pukeko are found near water throughout New Zealand.

Characteristic blue feather and red beaks, these birds look really pretty.

In the Western springs, they are found on grass near the water, and love eating bread.

Goose

There are so many families of geese in the Western springs park.

From spring to early summer, you can see many baby geese, or goslings, walking around with their parents.

Babies are soooo cute and fluffy, and quite adventurous.

They will happily eat your bread, but be careful that some of adult geese are large and aggressive.

You might stay away from aggressive geese if you have small children with you, as aggressive birds may try to steal food directly.

Mother geese are often irritable while they are raising babies or hatching their egg, so stay away from them.

Black swan: Cygnus atratus

Also native to New Zealand, black swans have beautiful black body feathers and bright red beak.

Very beautiful and gentle birds.

Often they are swimming in the lake, and may be interested in your bread.

In the spring, there are many fluffy little babies too; the real “ugly duckling”. They are NOT ugly, but super cute!

They are curious and often swim towards you.

Australian Coot: Fulica atra australis

Medium size birds slightly smaller than Mallards, with black body and sharp white beak, with big feet.

These coots are also native to New Zealand.

They are often swimming in the lake. When chased by another birds, you may see them “run” on water at an amazing speed.

Some of them are quite brave and come close to human, asking for some bread.

We spotted a family with baby coot this trip in the spring.

Eel

In the lakes of the Western springs park, there are many eels.

They often swim towards you, asking for some bread.

Some of them seem to be tailing black swans, perhaps they are hoping to steal their bread?

Native to New Zealand, these eels are well looked after by the council.

In nature reserves and parks of New Zealand including the Western springs park, it is forbidden to catch any plant or animal species.

You must not try to catch any birds or eels, or other species in the park.

They are all very friendly and will come close to you if you bring a bag of bread for them, so enjoy watching them up close inside the park.

Play park inside the Western springs park

There is also a playground located inside the Western springs park.

There are many play gyms and outdoor toys that both young and elder kids can play.

Kids get so excited in the play ground!

This playground area is adjacent to the Auckland zoo, and occasionally you can see an elephant walking through a fence.

There is a small shop that operates in the Zoo, that also sells some food and ice creams to the Western springs park visitors.

There is a BBQ area nearby too.

From the Auckland Zoo shop, you can purchase scoops of Tip-top ice cream.

Ice cream after walking around the park and playing in the play ground taste fantastic!

To enjoy the Western Springs Park

The Western springs park is a large park. You can easily spend two hours or even a whole day there.

So when you are visiting the park, make sure to bring proper sunscreen, hats, plenty of drinks and snacks.

Also, you are allowed to feed birds and this is a real exciting event for both children and adults.

So don’t forget to bring a bag of old-bread from home to feed birds. Many visitors bring a bag full.

There are some families with kids teaching them how to ride bicycles in the park.

It is pretty safe inside the park without cars, so you may like to bring kids’ bicycles.

You do need to be extra careful of other visitors though, as there are many animals and small children running around in the park.

When it starts to get dark in the late afternoon, birds will go back to their nests and become less active.

So if you are hoping to meet active birds, you should come earlier during the day.

Summary of the Western Springs Park

One sunny day on the weekend, perfect for a picnic?

The Western springs park is a perfect place to go on such day, if you live in Auckland or visiting Auckland.

Pack your picnic gear, sunscreen and hats, a bag of bread and go to the Western Springs!

It is not far from other shops and amenities, and there are toilets inside the park too, which makes it an easy place to go with children.

Summary of Western springs park

• Beautiful park perfect for walking and picnic
• Many New Zealand native birds can be seen
• Bring a bag of bread to feed birds and eels!
• There are playground for children
• There are toilets and a shop in the park
• Only 10 minutes drive from Auckland downtown
• Free because its a park!

Making chocolate cookies with Kids!

Nothing to do on the weekend at home with kids? Too bad weather to go outside? How about some cooking experience with kids!

Here is our favorite chocolate cookie recipe with some tips making them with children.

Ingredients for chocolate cookies

• Margarine… 180g (can use butter, but margarine is cheaper)
• Sugar… 1 cup
• Egg yolk… x3
• Baking powder… 1/2 tea spoon
• Coco powder…  x3 table spoons
• Standard flour… x3 cups 
• Vanilla essence … 2-3 drops (optional)
• Standard flour to use when shaping cookies

This time we used sunrise margarine: NZ$1.9 for 500g pack – very good cost performance!


We used also cost-effective essential brand plain flour.


Baking powder


As for cocoa powder, use 100% cocoa powder without any added milk powder or sugar.

How to make chocolate cookies

1. First, mix margarine and sugar in a bowl. Margarine is soft straight out of fridge, so you can start mixing without waiting for it to warm up to the room temperature.


Starting to mix sugar and margarine


After mixing, it to make an even mixture

2. Add egg yolks and mix. Drop one egg yolk at a time, mix until yellow patch is no longer visible, then add next yolk. If you have vanilla essence, add 2-3 drops here.


3. Combine flour, baking powder and chocolate powder in a separate bowl and mix. Then pour this powder mixture into the bowl with egg-marg-sugar mixture.

Use spoon to mix like you are “cutting or chopping” the mixture.


When it is evenly mixed, use your hand to knead the mixture to make a big mass of cookie dough. The dough should be a bit sticky, hard enough that you can shape them.


4. Wrap cookie dough with plastic food wrap and store in the fridge for 30 minutes minimum. This time can be longer, you can even keep it in the fridge for one or two nights.


5. Knead with kids and use cookie cutters to shape cookies.

Sprinkle some plane flour on chopping board or on baking sheet and on a rolling pin. Roll the cookie dough with the rolling pin so that it is about 4mm thick. 

Children can try rolling, but parents will need to finish it as kids tend to leave cookie dough too thick and uneven.


My 3-year-old having a go at rolling.

Then use cookie cutters to shape cookies. Cookie cutters can be quite sharp so watch carefully when kids are doing it.

*If the child is too young, get the child to choose which cookie cutter to use, then let them place it on the cookie dough sheet. Then the adult can finish the cutting.



Place shaped cookies onto a piece of baking sheet.

6. Pre-warm the oven to 180C. (=356F) .  Bake them in the oven for 10-12 minutes until the edge and the bottom of cookies just start to turn brown.



7. Once cooked, cool on a baking rack. Cookies are soft when warm, but hardens when cooled.

Alternative recipe: Without cocoa to make plane cookies

You can always omit cocoa powder from above recipe to make plain cookies. In this case, I highly recommend adding 3 table spoons of almond powder to replace cocoa powder, which results in very rich flavor.

If you prefer, you could replace flour with rice flour to make gluten-free version.


Plain version

Tips when making cookies with children

Making cookies with children can be a very good educational activity. There are commercial cooking courses for children with fees, but if you do it at home, its free!

But cooking can be difficult and dangerous for too young children. At our home, my children are involved in the following cookie making processes;

• Make a crack on eggs (cracking and separating egg yolk from egg white is done by an adult)
• Mix margarine and sugar with a spoon
• Try scooping cocoa powder with a table spoon and put in a bowl (if they make a mistake and the amount of cocoa is more or less than supposed to…. minimal effect! No problem!)
• Kneading cookie dough and shaping cookies <- Kids enjoy this the most!

There are also some tips for making the whole experience easy for the adult:

• Have all ingredients measured and prepared before starting cooking
• Have tools like bowls, spoons, baking sheet, all ready on the bench before starting cooking
• Place newspapers or scrap papers on the floor and do cooking on the paper (this way, it is easy to clean when spillage happen)
• Be mentally prepared that there will be a spillage

Kneading and shaping with little hands!

Instead off doing the whole cookie making process in one day, you could prepare cookie dough (above step 1~4) and let it sit in the fridge over night.
Then start kneading and shaping cookies from step 5 onwards on the following day with children. This way, the whole activity takes shorter and easier on the supervising adult.

Things to be careful when making cookies with children

The ONLY thing to really be careful when cooking with children is their safety.

As long as the whole cooking activity is finished without any injuries (like cutting or burning), it is a success even if cookies are shaped funny or tastes funny.


With that in mind, good solid preparation before starting to cook is essential. It is very difficult to go back into kitchen to grab an item or do something when you are watching children at the same time.

By preparing everything before hand, hopefully the adult can concentrate on guiding and helping children.

Be ready as spillage WILL happen no matter how careful you do it. Flour dropping on the floor or it maybe an egg.

Give up on trying to prevent spillage 100% and instead, have tools ready for cleaning afterwards. Whether it is flour or egg or margarine, nothing is toxic, so simple sweeping and wiping would easily do the trick.

If you place news papers or other scrap papers on the floor and work on them, it makes it easier when tidying up.


Baking in an oven should always be done by an adult, and be careful that children do not come anywhere near the hot oven, oven plate or freshly baked hot cookies.


If you do cookie making on a dining chair and table, children may fall from the chair or children may drop items on the floor. This can be dangerous.

So I recommend that you place papers on the floor and do mixing work on the floor, or alternatively use a coffee table.

Summary on Making cookies with kids

Cookie making can be a real fun, special experience for children. My children have been helping me shape cookies since they were 2-year old, and still enjoy it at school-age.

The whole house smells really nice of baking, creating very happy environment. And of course, freshly baked home-made cookies always taste the best!!

＜*For cute cookie cutters in NZ at a bargain price, checkout Fishpond.co.nz below!*>

Dinosaur Cookie Cutter Set
Ninjabread Men Cookie Biscuit Cutters - 3 Pcs