(Expert tip- never bring the veggies inside)
Kids are way more likely to eat veggies by pulling from their own garden plants than from a plate at mealtime. Here we provide tips for starting a kid-friendly vegetable garden or porch containers so that they graze on more fresh food and less junk. We’ll also offer our favorite combos to get kids to eat more veggies, on the go and at the table.
I’m just guessing here, but…if you have kids you very likely have these priorities for them in mind:
- That they feel loved and are happy.
- That they eat nutritious food to help them grow up healthy and strong.
- That they’re getting outdoors a lot and are not glued to a device indoors.
These goals are easy to say and harder to stick with. The hustle and bustle runaround of school, work, activities are enough to leave the whole family exhausted.
So how can we get our kids to actually seek out fresh veggies when they’re craving a snack?
We’ve found the best way is to not even try to serve veggies on a plate. Trust me here- we are professional vegetable growers and our kids rarely eat veggies from a plate sitting down at meal time.
They DO however eat them directly from the garden during a stroll, as they’re passing by a container cherry tomato plant on the porch, or even when they’re walking through the farm stand and see an open bin of carrots inviting them to take one.
So what are some easy (talking real easy) veggies to grow in any ground space that they’ll go for?
Here are some basic tips for growing easily munchable veggies.
- Put your garden or containers as close to the house as possible. Right outside your doorstep or place you pass multiple times daily is best, even if the space is small.
- Constructed raised beds are pretty but definitely not required.
- Veggies don’t have to be in their own plot. Small planting spaces are just fine. You’re not trying to homestead here so if the spot near your door is big enough for one head of lettuce only then just do that. You can mix veggie plants here and there too with perennial landscaping (make sure its unsprayed).
- Make the soil the best you can to get started by purchasing or adding compost to planting holes. Look for “Raised bed potting mix” to fill containers rather than bags marked “top soil”. Make sure your base contains some compost. Buy the best mix you can to get plants off to best start possible. Your plants may start and stay weak unless you nurture their soil nutrition and add compost at the start.
- Purchase seedlings from actual growers like at the Farmers Market or Crows Nest. Avoid big-box store seedlings because those plants are grown to look nice and not necessarily be healthy (they’re typically pumped up with fertilizer and will be stunted and not hardy or accustomed to real life garden conditions).
- Add a small amount of a balanced organic fertilizer, like 5-4-3. Read package instructions for application. If you add too much fertilizer your plants will be leafy with few fruits and may attract aphids if they have too much nitrogen.
- Plants need space to thrive. Don’t overcrowd them in containers or gardens. Minimum container size: for herbs, 1 gallon; for other plants, 5 -10 gallons.
- Mulches and landscape fabrics can really help keep weeds at bay, keep moisture in your soil and help warm it. Insect-net and row covers can help protect vulnerable crops without needing pesticides.
- Certain crops only do well in certain seasons. For example, you’ll have best success with lettuce, spinach, radishes, broccoli and salad turnips during spring and fall only. Veggies best in the summer include tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and melons.
Select veggies that can be eaten raw, straight out of little hands. For example, go for cucumbers over summer squash.
Here’re our favorite right-from-the-garden veggies:
| Garden Veggie | Kid garden growing tips |
| Cherry tomatoes | For containers, get bush-type plants (Sungold) |
| Romaine or any Lettuce | Direct seed or transplant. Plant often (every 1-2 weeks) |
| Herbs | Easy and seedlings are readily available. Try dill, basil, parsley, bronze fennel. |
| Carrots | Can be grown all year. Keep seeds moist to germinate. Do shallow seedings in deep loose soil. |
| Spinach | Cool season only. Direct seed Sept-mid April. |
| Microgreens | Can be grown indoors in a windowsill. Start with a good potting soil or even just peat. Best seeds for microgreens are broccoli. Ready 10-14 days from seed to harvest. Harvest with scissors. Refresh tray and start again. |
| Green onions | Can plant directly from purchased green onions. Harvest tops and leave bulb to keep growing. Treat as a cut & come again crop |
| Salad turnips (hakurai) | Spring/Fall (cool season crop Quick growing and germinate easily but insects love them so cover with row cover or insect net as soon as you seed them. |
| Sugar snap peas | Get in early (early April). Watch out for rabbits (net or row cover). Trellis makes them easier to pick. |
| Ground cherries/Husk cherries | Treat like cherry tomatoes for container planting. |
| Cucumbers | Only grown when soil’s warm. Wait until late May to plant seeds or seedlings. Prune off first set of flowers to get stronger plants at onset. Cover with row cover to protect from cucumber beetles. |
| Sweet lunchbox peppers | Plant when ground is warm (late May) and no sooner. Focus on growing a healthy plant (not fruits) so prune off first initial clusters of flowers. Sweet, colorful (red, orange, yellow) peppers come with ripening. Leave green ones on plant to ripen. Don’t eat raw green peppers. |
| Strawberries | Buy plants ready to go. |
| Melons | Select small varieties that can be eaten in one sitting and have shorter maturity times (less time for something to go wrong). Use landscape fabric to warm the ground and keep weeds down. Plant in full sun. Make sure you fertilize the soil. Be patient because they take a long time to grow |
Ok, so you don’t have time to garden much but want your littles (and you) to eat more veggies. These are vegetables that are easy to incorporate in meal time without much fuss or even cooking in most cases. Put small (maybe super small) portions out to start if you have a hesitant eater. Consider even tiny tastings by kids a success.
| Meal time veggie | Plating tips |
| Cherry tomatoes | Need no explanation |
| Carrots, Celery | Slice into sticks |
| Kohlrabi, Salad turnips | Peel and slice. Serve with dip like hummus, black bean dip or ranch |
| Spinach | Blend (sneak) into pizza sauce/dips/pesto |
| Microgreens | Sprinkle on everything- sandwiches, soup, tacos, nachos, bagels, pizza… |
| Leafy lettuce | Just serve 1 leaf. Make it like finger food that they can simply pick up with their fingers to eat |
The last trick I’ll share is the captive audience veggie snack kit. By this I mean that I pack veggies with me for snacks on the go. My go-to mobile veggie snack is carrots because they’re sweet, sturdy and pack well.
If you’re travelling in the car or take a break on a bike ride or at the park and they ask for a snack from you, you hand them a carrot, they see clearly that there are no other options, then they eat it without fuss. And they find they like it. If you brought other snacks too either don’t let them know this at first or offer it after they’ve tried the veggie.
Certain vegetables are not good for raw eating and should be cooked first. The vegetables listed below are much more digestible cooked or contain low levels of toxins that are neutralized by heat during cooking.
Vegetables we avoid raw include:
- Green beans (or any raw legumes)
- Edamame (edible soybeans)
- Green peppers (or any green/unripe night shade like green peppers, tomatoes)
- Potatoes
- Beets
Remember, even if you kids are just eating a monochrome tan plate of chicken nuggets every night when you sit down to eat, you can be happy knowing they snacked on veggies during the day in motion before you even sat down.
If all else fails, kids can always grab a veggie snack at our farm stand. Look for our kids’ bin of free veggies next time you’re by!
