It may officially be fall, but the plants in my garden are still going strong! We’ve got heirloom and cherry tomatoes for days, squash and carrots that are still growing and lots of herbs, onions, and potatoes! We’ve talked extensively on this website about the benefits of gardening with children and how fun and easy it can be to grow fruits, veggies, and flowers. And while it’s an absolute blast to dig in the dirt and care for your plants, the real fun comes when you get to eat them! Today, we have Wisconsin mom, photographer, and homesteader Brandi Rondinelli here sharing four quick and easy ways to make kid-friendly snacks from the garden. These snacks are the perfect way for you to enjoy the fruits of all your hard work with the kids in a healthy, easy and delicious way!
Gardening with kids
There is nothing more rewarding than growing your own food! Am I right or am I right? Having the ability to go into your yard and gather food for dinner, lunch and snacks is so neat! It’s a novelty that still amazes me every year. And my kids love it just as much as I do! The whole gardening process is an amazing experience for both kids and adults. From choosing the plants we want to grow, to planning the garden and then carefully planting the seeds, my kids are involved in the process from day one. They love having a say about what we’ll grow and they learn so much about the life cycle of plants.
Watching the sprouts come in and tending to each plant daily over the course of the summer is also quite an experience for the kids. We love taking care of our plants, nurturing them and singing to them. But in my opinion, harvesting your crop of fruits and vegetables is my favorite part of the process! There’s nothing like biting into a strawberry you grew with love or serving a meal to your family that you took care of together.
Benefits of gardening with kids
There are so many amazing benefits of gardening with kids. Creating a garden with your children is a wonderful way to spend quality time with them outside and teach them about nature and the environment. Kids get the benefits of fresh air, sunshine and outdoor activity. It teaches them responsibility about caring for living things by watering, pruning, weeding and fertilizing. Gardening teaches them patience and tenacity. It makes them think about where their food is coming from and encourages them to eat healthy. Planting a garden is a cheap and easy activity that educates and nourishes. It’s a great life skill and of course, it’s fun!
Easy kid-friendly snacks from the garden
My kids love being part of the gardening process, but they really get excited about our harvesting days. When our plants are ready, we’ll spend the whole day harvesting, canning\storing & eating all of our goodies! Just the pure joy on their faces pulling out the carrots that they’ve watched grow for months is worth every dirty fingernail. I definitely try to transfer this excitement about harvesting into eating our haul! Here are a couple quick and easy ways that we make kid-friendly snacks from the garden.
Straight from the garden snack ideas
My favorite way to eat the goodies from our garden is straight off the plant, outside in the sunshine! There’s something absolutely divine about plucking a cherry tomato off the vine and tasting the warm sweetness of it! It’s heavenly and I highly recommend you try it! There are so many different fruits and veggies you can plant that you can eat staigth from the garden, with little to no prep work. Here are a few kid-approved snacks ideas straight from the garden!
- sliced cucumbers
- strawberries
- cherry tomatoes
- sugar snap peas
- green beans
- bell peppers
There’s no recipe needed for any of these amazing garden goodies! All you need to do is pick, rinse (if you want) and eat! A lot of these are things that are easy for kids to grab, so let them take part in the harvesting. The more involved in the process they are, the more likely they’ll be to eat the food!
Please keep in mind that whatever you plant, if you spray it with any sort of chemical, you will not just be able to eat it straight from the garden. If you have children, I recommend only using natural fertilizers and your own compost.
Kale chips from the garden
One of our favorite super easy kid-friendly snacks from the garden is kale chips! We plant kale in the spring and pick handfuls of it throughout the summer for chips, salads and side dishes. The kids loves making kale chips and we try to keep it around all the time for a quick easy grab-and-go snack that’s healthy and delicious. The recipe couldn’t be easier and within minutes of picking, you have a tasty snack for the whole family!
Kale chip cooking directions:
- Rip the kale into small/medium pieces and place in a large bowl
- Drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the kale (be sure not to drench as they will end up soggy)
- Add salt or seasoning of your choice (e.g. garlic salt, ranch seasoning packet, etc.)
- Toss to coat
- Bake in the oven at 300 degrees for about 8 minutes or until crispy
- Enjoy!
Juicing from the garden
Juicing is another wonderful way to incorporate your garden goodies into kid-friendly snacks from the garden. Making our own juice is one of our favorite ways to get more fruits and vegetables into our meals. The benefits of juicing are plenty! From lowering cholesterol to building your immune system, boosting your energy and improving digestion. But the best part about juicing is that it’s so easy! You can use whatever you have on hand. Feel free to throw in fruits and veggies from your garden, but also anything you have in the fridge (not from your garden).
There are a million different juice recipes and you can customize any of them to your taste or needs. If you grow celery, you can juice just celery for some amazing benefits! Carrots with beets, cucumbers and kale make a great juice, using all ingredients from your garden. One of our favorite green juice recipes is made by blending the following: 2 apples, 2 bunches of kale, 1 thumb of ginger, 2 cucumbers, 1.5 lemons, 1/2 a pineapple and 6 oz of water. Oh man, this one is good! It’s green, but the kids love it!
If you want a few more of our juicing recipes, check out my “Natural Health” highlights reel on my Instagram account: @soulshinephotographer
Garden herb-infused drinks for kids
Herbs are another fun plant to include in your garden and use in various ways. You can use herbs for seasoning meals, making teas, infused oils and even soaps, if you are feeling creative 🙂 This year we grew the following herbs: Mint, Parsley, Rosemary, Thyme, Lavender, Sage, and Basil. We used all of these herbs in so many different ways, either fresh from the garden or dried for later use.
One of our favorite ways to incorporate fresh herbs into our diet is to make herb-infused drinks for the kids. The subtle flavors of infused water are so much better for kids and adults than the overly sweet flavor of most juices. Also, most fruit juice also contains a lot of sugar, which you avoid with infused waters.
There are so many great combinations of fruits, vegetables and herbs to add to water to make it more fun and flavorful. Infused water is best 2 to 4 hours after you’ve made it. Or, you can let it infuse overnight in the refrigerator. Here are few delicious and herb-infused waters for kids:
- cucumbers and rosemary
- basil and strawberries
- lemon (or lime) and mint
- orange slices and basil
- honeydew and mint
- watermelon and basil
- red pepper, pineapple and basil
- apple and thyme
Garden snacks for kids
I can’t tell you enough how much I love gardening with my kids and enjoying the fruits of our labor together (pun intended). I highly recommend that you try gardening with your kids so you can enjoy so many of the wonderful benefits. If you don’t have the room or the time to maintain a large garden, there are still options, like indoor potted plants, window sill herb gardens and community gardens. Kids will reap benefits from even the tiniest of gardens, so don’t let size stop you. I hope your little ones like these kid-friendly snacks from the garden as much as mine do!
What’s your favorite way to eat from your garden?
About the author
I’m a wife, published photographer & mother of two little wolves. We are a homesteading family & love everything about the outdoors. We have traveled all around Wisconsin and hiked 21 state parks in just 2 years. From raising chickens, kids, having a full garden & a photography business, you could say we stay busy but we always have time for an adventure and new memories.
You can find Brandi online in the following locations:
Instagram: @soulshinephotographer
Client work: @motherhenshomestead
Website: www.soulshinephotographer.com
Run Wild My Child posts: Brandi Rondinelli
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