Raring2go! Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire

21 Top Gardening Activities to Keep the Kids Occupied this Summer! As the summer holidays approach, what better opportunity to get the kids back to Mother Nature than in your garden or balcony? Joanne Evans, of Aberdeenshire - based gardening school, Gardening4Kids, knows all about encouraging children outdoors. Joanne advises that offering fun activities in your own garden can go a long way to creating valuable and lasting memories for the whole family. Here are some top gardening activities for you to try this summer: 1. Sow, Water and Grow A successful harvest is priceless in boosting a child ’ s confidence and sense of achievement. Growing their own fruit and vegetables also means that children are less likely to be ‘ fussy eaters ’ and develop a healthy attitude to eating fruit and vegetables. Start off with some easy to grow seeds with a short growth cycle. Radish, rocket and lettuces are all good choices for outdoors. 2 . Flowers and fruit If you prefer something more colourful, sunflowers are a firm favourite and you can have a competition to grow the tallest one! Strawberries are an easy fruit to grow and tasty too. www.gardening4kids.org.uk If You don ’ t Have a Garden … There are still plenty of fun activities to get your children involved in nature. Paint and decorate some terracotta pots to display on your windowsill and sow some herbs as they take up little space. You can also make cress or grass heads. Put a dessert spoon full of grass or cress seed in the toe end of an old pair of tights or stocking and the fill it with compost and knot the open end, decorate your head, place on a pot of water and wait for the hair to grow! 3. Make Your Own Compost Making your own compost is a fantastic way to educate your child on becoming greener! Fruit and vegetable peelings, shredded paper or cardboard, coffee grounds and split used teabags can all be added to your bin. Grass clippings should be used in equal quantities with other types of material, otherwise your compost will become green and slimy. You need to make sure that the heap starts to generate heat and is turned regularly to get air in. 4. Feed the Birds Having a bird feeder will attract more birds to your garden and they will feed on pests like slugs and snails. Creating your own bird feeder makes for a fun and productive afternoon. There are dozens of ways to make a bird feeder but be sure to check what ’ s safe for birds to eat before putting it together. F or more great ideas see gardening4kids.org.uk