Grow a Garden Kids Will Love! Quick Guide for Best Varieties
Growing a garden kids will love takes a little planning and knowing which varieties kids will love the most. Here are my top picks for vegetables, flowers, herbs, and more, to grow a garden your kids will love to spend time in and eat from.
After managing garden programs with 4-H children and our local Boys and Girls Club, as well as feeding three of my own children from our garden, I’ve gotten to know which vegetables, herbs, fruits, and more that kids like best.
Even more important, I know which varieties of each plant have the best flavor, texture, and are easy to pick for little hands. Whether you are looking to grow school gardens or a family garden at home, this quick guide will help you find the best varieties to grow for your kiddos. Happy growing!
Where to Buy these Seeds
All of these seeds, unless otherwise noted, are from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. No, this is not an affiliate post and I do not make any money if you buy these seeds. Johnny’s is a good company with excellent seeds and options, so I recommend them wholeheartedly. Heck, even Martha Stewart shares her Johnny’s seed haul every year!
Vegetables for a Kid-Friendly Garden
A vegetable garden is the ultimate experience in outdoor snacking and I think the best way to build a foundation for healthy eating. You don’t need a big plot to grow a substantial amount of vegetables, you can produce a surprising amount of veggies in a small space.
Cucumbers
To maximize space and make growing cucumbers easy, grow these on some kind of trellis. The trellis can go straight up a wall or for even more fun grow them on a curved cattle panel to make a cucumber tunnel.
Favorite Varieties
- Gershwin or Little Leaf for making Pickles
- Diva for Slicing
- Quick Snack for Containers
Sugar Snap Peas (Snow Peas)
Another one for the trellis, these can handle some cold temperatures and grow fairly quick. You can often get in two plantings. Best of all, these can be eaten whole, pod and all.
Favorite Varieties
- Sugar Ann
- Royal Snap II
Carrots
These always feel like magic when you pull them out of the soil. Wonderfully there are carrots in a rainbow of colors including purple, red, yellow, and of course orange. The varieties listed below are shorter, so it isn’t quite as dramatic when you pull them out of the soil BUT they are much less likely to break when the kids pull them up.
Favorite Varieties
- Bolero
- Shin Kuroda
- Adelaide
- Atlas
Cherry Tomatoes
These can be hit or miss with kids but I find the sweater, softer skinned varieties are the best way to go, especially for the picky eater. Make sure tomatoes are staked or attached to another type of support so they don’t flop over. Also be sure to harvest them regularly or they will attract a lot of fruit flies.
Favorite Varieties
- Sun Gold
- Yellow Mini
- White Cherry
- Sunrise Bumblebee
Kale
This one might be surprising, but year after year my daughters spot the kale plant in the garden, pull off the frilly leaves, and happily munch on them. It is very easy to recognize (the curly varieties at least) and they also bake up into crunchy kale chips.
You only need 2-3 kale plants for a medium sized family. It grows back very quickly! One last positive thing about kale, is it has a long growing season. It will survive frost and even a light snow!
Favorite Varieties
- Westlandse
- Black Magic
- Redbor
Bush Beans
This is another great garden snacker! Bush beans are grown like they sound, in a small but bushy plant, so they will take up more garden space. You can do a pole bean instead, which will grow up a trellis, if space is an issue.
With bush beans each plant can be harvested at least twice. If you do one additional bean planting a few weeks after your first, you will easily have beans for most of the garden season.
Lastly, if you leave beans to fully develop and dry out on the plant, you can crack open their dried pods to find their colorful seeds inside! Seed saving is a fun family project, and beans are a very easy way to give it a try.
Favorite Varieties
- Provider
- Rocdor (Yellow)
- Royal Burgundy (Purple)
Potatoes
This is about as close to digging up buried treasure as most of us will ever get. The only downside to potatoes is you need pretty significant space and a deep garden bed. From what I have seen, the tower and bucket methods of planting them have so/so results.
Favorite Varieties
- Adirondack Blue (Purple/Blue)
- Dark Red Norland
- Kennebec (Yellow)
Fruits for a Children’s Garden
Fruits can be a little tricky, as many fruiting plants take several years to mature and actually bear fruit. These plants and varieties here will provide fruit either the same season you plant them, or by the next season, so you don’t have to wait a long time to harvest them.
Strawberries
If you plant these early you can harvest a few by midsummer. Or you can put those fine motor skills to work and remove the blossoms to harvest even more strawberries the next year. You can also buy hanging pots planted with ready to pick berries if you want some to enjoy right away, though these don’t often produce many more fruits after the intial burst.
Favorite Varieties
- Albion
- Sequoia
- Jewel
Ground Cherries
These fall somewhere between a fruit and a vegetable, with some kids loving the flavor and others not so much. These grow in their own little brown wrappers, and when they fall off the plant you know they are ripe and ready! They are very fun for younger kids to gather in a basket, then unwrap the little packages to eat them.
Favorite Varieties
- Sugar Ann
- North Circle (from North Circle Seeds)
Rhubarb
Again we are kind of bending the definition of a fruit here, but rhubarb is one garden perennial we have to mention! It grows readily in sun or even partial shade. It can be easten in pies, jellies, cobblers, cooked down to make syrup, or the stalks dipped in a little sugar and crunched on like a big carrot.
The leaves are poisonous if you eat a huge amount of them, but I have yet to see this be a problem. Most young people, and let’s be honest, old people too, are fascinated by the huge leaves which provide endless entertainment as hats, flags, etc.
Favorite Varieties
- Victoria
- Cawood
- Whatever variety your neighbor has and lets you split to plant in your own garden.
Raspberries
I like to grow fall varieties of raspberry as it’s nice to get a fresh fruit towards the end of the season. It also helps avoid a nasty worm in your berries that is the larvae of the spotted wing drosophilia.
You will get a fall harvest if you plant in early spring. I recommend trellising them at the beginning of the harvest season so they don’t get unruly and the berries are easier to pick.
Favorite Varieties
- Ann
- Heritage
- Joan J (thornless)
Blackberries
Similar to raspberries, these are a wonderful perennial with easy-to-identify fruits that can be harvested the first fall for fall bearing, or by year two for everbearing varieties. Like with the raspberries, trellis these right away.
Favorite Varieties
- Niwot
- Jewel
- Bristol
Currants
Currants come in many different colors and vary in their sweetness. They can grow well in cold climates and are a great choice for making addition foods like pies, jams, etc.
My favorite place to buy currants is from a local farm called HoneyBerryUSA, but they do ship nation wide.
Favorite Varieties
- Pink Champagne
- Jonkheer van Tets (red)
- Belorusskaya (Black)
- Blanka (white)
Herbs for a Child’s Gardens
An herb garden is a joy for the senses. Touch, taste, and of course most importantly, smell! The herb garden was always a favorite for the Boys and Girls Club kids, with regular reports of kids sneaking home leaves in their pockets
For these, rather than delve into each specific variety, I’ll just share my favorite herbs with a few notes after each. For all of these herbs, they have wonderful culinary and medicinal propeties, so be sure to explore those with the kids. You might make flax pillows with lavender or use lemon thyme to make herb-infused honey! Oooh or you can make your own tea bags with dried chamomile flowers.
Many herbs these days have fun varieties to try, especially mint, which has varieties like pineapple and chocolate!
Favorite Herbs
- Lavender- tricky to start from seed, so potted plants are advised.
- Chamomile – This is bushy but smells wonderful and is easily used for fresh or dried tea.
- Basil– Easy to harvest and is shockingly good in a lemonde.
- Chives – Hardy Perennial that is easy to harvest and fun to hold in your teeth.
- Thyme – Especially lemon thyme, is wonderfully fragrant and used in many dishes. The kids can help harvest and then strip the leaves.
- Rosemary – Another often used kitchen herb, this dries easily and is wonderful in stews and breads.
- Lemon Balm – Smells like heaven and can be dried for a relaxing tea. Though warn the kids it does not taste as lemony as it smells or they will be in for a shock!
- Mint– Be sure to plant this in some kind of contained spot as it is a very hardy perennial that can lay claim to much of the garden if not tended to.
Cut Flowers for Children
This is one of my favorite places in the garden, as you can bring some of the beauty from your outdoor time right to the middle of your kitchen table and admire it for days! Again here rather than advise on favorite specific varieties (because favorites where flower colors are concerned is largely personal preference) I’ll share my favorite easy to grow cut flowers.
Do a little reading on how to properly cut the flowers (as in where on the stem to cut them) to maximize tall stem growth that will work well in vases.
- Zinnias – Prolific growers that are usually “cut and come again”, meaning any stem you cut flowers from will produce even more flowers later.
- Sunflowers – Make sure you check the size and height on your seeds as these can grow humongous!
- Calendula – Look for cut flower varieties or they can be a little on the short side.
- Pincushion Flowers – These wiil readily reseed themselves for next year and they have a nice long vase life.
- Rudbeckia – Stunning, but not quite as long of a vase life as the others.
- Statice– A really fun vase filler that also dries with just about zero effort.
- Strawflower – These also dry very easily and don’t lose color at all!
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Edible Flower Garden
Being able to actually eat beautiful flowers is always so fun for children. You can pluck them right from the garden or add them to salads, stir fries, or even crystalize them in sugar, if you feel like getting fancy. Here are a few varieties that are edible. Please always double check on the seed package just to be sure they are safe.
- Marigold
- Snapdragon
- Viola/Johnny Jump Up
- Portulaca
- Nasturtium
- Chamomile
- Lavender
- Bea Balm
- Borage
- Bachelor’s Buttons
Container Gardening
If you don’t have space for even a small garden, a great way to garden is with containers.
These can be anything from small window boxes to great big rain barrels cut in half. This easily movable rolling garden would work well on a balcony.
If you don’t care too much about aesthetics, these grow bags are very handy for planting.
Or a simple railing planter box can grow leafy greens, herbs, and even edible shoots.
Also, make sure you take advantage of a vertical garden! You can grow a surprising amount of things when you start to grow up!
Favorite Plants and Varieties
- Patio Baby Eggplant
- Tasmanian Chocolate Tomato
- Eros Bell Pepper
- Bolero Carrots
- Cupid Bell Pepper
- Trilogy Bean Mix
- Compact Herbs (Look for varities that say “compact” and avoid “bushy” ones) – Thyme, oregano, sage, lemon balm, etc.
- Teddy Bear or Hobbit sunflowers
- Baby Kales
- Small Head Lettuces
- Sugar Snap Peas
Pizza Garden
Growing a pizza garden, to be honest, isn’t necessarily the most kid-friendly type of garden. The best tomatoes for pizza sauce are not great for snacking, and most kids do not enjoy things like onions, peppers, or other kinds of vegetables on their pizza. However, if you are dead set on growing a pizza garden, here are the best varieties to use.
Favorite Pizza Varieties
- Amish Paste
- Sunrise Sauce
- San Marzano II
- Goddess Banana Pepper
- Gourmet Bell Pepper
- Bunching Onions (Any variety)
- Bianca de Maggio Onions
- Spinach
- Genovese Basil
- Microgreens (Mustards and arugula are especially delicious on pizzas)
Butterfly Garden
When it comes to growing a butterfly garden, even a small patch can make a huge difference for pollinators. One of my favorite children’s books on the topic is called a Plant a Pocket Prairie.
While I would love to give you a definitive list, I can’t. The best plants for pollinators are usually native plants to your specific area.
A great place to get ideas is from the Xerxes Society, who has put together these great lists by your geographic region. If you are outside of the United States, you’ll have to do a bit of googling to figure out what plants work in your part of the world.
Other Ideas for Gardening Activities
A garden project need not be limited to just growing plants, there are lots of ways kids, both small children and even older children can build fond memories, get in some physical activity, and develop lifelong skills. Here are a few other projects and fun activities you might want to include in the garden!
- Create a Garden Journal
- Bee Pollination Activity
- Construct a Pollinator House
- Build a Compost Pile
- Build a Bean House (This has become my kids’ favorite play space in the garden)
