Skip to content
The Sunflower FortGrowing things with children

An independent magazine about gardening with children: what to sow, what to build and how to keep a family garden safe.

Growing things with children, from the first seed to the plate

Growing things with children, step by step. Practical guides for families, childminders and early years staff, whether the space is a garden, a yard, a balcony or a windowsill.

Start a family gardenGarden safety first

A child in a sun hat holding a small watering can beside a raised bed of lettuces and marigolds in a sunny family garden
A first bed, a watering can and a marigold: the three things most family gardens really need.

Three subjects

Grow, make, and keep it safe

Each section opens with an index of its guides. Start with the growing, move to the building and making, or go straight to the safety and care of a shared garden.

  1. A parent and a young child kneeling at a raised timber planter, pressing seeds into dark soil with a watering can beside them in soft morning light.
    01

    Growing with Children

    Starting a family garden: the first bed, the crops that forgive a beginner, pots and window boxes for small spaces, potatoes in bags, and eating what you grow.

    5 guides inside

  2. Two children playing inside a teepee of climbing bean vines, sitting on a blanket with toys, sunlight filtering through the leaves.
    02

    Garden Play and Crafts

    The garden as a workshop and a playground: a living bean teepee, a miniature garden in a dish, painted pots and plant markers, and a sandpit for digging.

    4 guides inside

  3. An adult and a child in gloves planting a small shrub in a garden border, a wheelbarrow of compost and hand tools nearby.
    03

    Garden Care and Safety

    Keeping a shared garden safe and alive: poisonous plants to know, slug control without pellets, a wildlife corner, and the routine care a family plot needs.

    3 guides inside

Section 1 of 3

Growing with Children

Starting a family garden: the first bed, the crops that forgive a beginner, pots and window boxes for small spaces, potatoes in bags, and eating what you grow.

  • Two children in wellington boots standing at the edge of a small vegetable bed, one holding a trowel, a wooden seed tray on the grass in bright spring daylight.

    Growing with Children

    Gardening with Children

    A practical start to gardening with children: planning a small plot, tools that fit small hands, sowing the first seeds and keeping the work short and regular.

    A patch the size of a door, tools that fit, and a short weekly round.

  • A child's hands lifting a bunch of small red radishes from loose soil, green tops still attached, a woven basket nearby on a garden path.

    Growing with Children

    Easy Vegetables to Grow

    Ten vegetables that forgive a beginner, from radishes and lettuce to peas and courgettes, with sowing times, spacing and the harvests children can pick.

    Ten crops that answer within days and forgive a beginner.

  • Terracotta pots and a wooden window box planted with lettuce and herbs on a sunny stone step, a small watering can resting on the ledge.

    Growing with Children

    Growing Vegetables in Containers

    Grow food without a garden: the pots, compost and crops that suit containers and window boxes, with watering, feeding and the vegetables that stay small.

    A balcony, a step and a window box are a complete way to grow.

  • A child tipping a fabric grow bag onto a tarpaulin, pale new potatoes tumbling out among dark compost, garden gloves and a bucket beside.

    Growing with Children

    Growing Potatoes in Containers

    Grow potatoes in bags, buckets and pots: choosing seed potatoes, earthing up, watering, and the day children tip out the bag to find the crop.

    A bag, some seed potatoes, and a crop tipped out at the end.

  • Children washing freshly picked carrots and tomatoes at an outdoor tap over a metal bowl, water splashing, a wooden crate of vegetables on the path.

    Growing with Children

    From the Patch to the Plate

    How growing food changes what children eat: picking and cooking together, simple garden recipes, tasting new vegetables and keeping harvests safe to eat.

    Picking, washing, cooking: the step where the garden reaches the plate.

Open the Growing with Children index

From the archive

Guides that keep their historical addresses

This domain published an English family gardening site for children for several years. These guides answer the questions those pages answered, at the same addresses.

Section 2 of 3

Garden Play and Crafts

The garden as a workshop and a playground: a living bean teepee, a miniature garden in a dish, painted pots and plant markers, and a sandpit for digging.

  • A bamboo pole frame tied at the top standing in a garden bed with young bean plants climbing the base, a child peering inside the opening.

    Garden Play and Crafts

    Making a Bean Teepee

    Build a living bean teepee with children: choosing poles and climbing beans, setting the frame, sowing at the base and keeping the den growing all summer.

    A circle of canes, climbing beans, and a den by midsummer.

  • A shallow dish of moss, tiny ferns, pebbles and a small toy house arranged as a miniature garden on a wooden table outdoors.

    Garden Play and Crafts

    Miniature Gardens

    Make a miniature garden with children: choosing a shallow container, soil, small plants and tiny props, and keeping a fairy or dinosaur scene alive outdoors.

    A dish, some moss and a few props: a small world a child can keep.

  • Children painting terracotta pots at an outdoor table, brushes and bright paint pots scattered, finished pots with small plants lined up behind.

    Garden Play and Crafts

    Painting Pots and Plant Markers

    Paint terracotta pots and make plant markers with children: preparing the surface, choosing paint that lasts outdoors, and labelling a family vegetable bed.

    Pots and markers that survive a season and label the bed.

  • A wooden sandpit with a lifted lid in a garden corner, two children digging with spades, buckets and a toy digger on the sand.

    Garden Play and Crafts

    The Sandpit

    A sandpit guide for families: choosing a spot and a cover, the sand to buy, keeping it clean and safe, and the play it supports through the seasons.

    Choosing the spot and the sand, and keeping the pit clean and safe.

Open the Garden Play and Crafts index

The reference shelf

Where the checked advice comes from

The Sunflower Fort sells nothing and answers to no nursery or brand. Where a guide gives a specific fact, it is checked against a published source. These are the organisations the magazine relies on most.

  • Outside this site

    RHS: Grow Your Own

    The Royal Horticultural Society publishes detailed, checked growing guides for vegetables, fruit and herbs, from sowing depth to harvest.

    Sowing, spacing and harvest, crop by crop.

  • Outside this site

    KidsGardening

    A long running non profit that collects garden activities, lesson plans and family projects for children of every age.

    Activities and lesson plans for every age.

  • Outside this site

    Wild About Gardens

    A joint project of the RHS and The Wildlife Trusts, with practical advice on ponds, log piles and planting for wildlife.

    Ponds, log piles and planting for wildlife.

  • Outside this site

    RSPB

    The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds explains what to feed, plant and build to bring birds into a small garden.

    Bringing birds into a small garden.

  • Outside this site

    Garden Organic

    A charity for organic growing, with guides to composting, soil, pest control without chemicals and growing with children.

    Compost, soil and pest control without chemicals.

  • Outside this site

    RoSPA: Garden Safety

    The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents sets out the risks in a family garden and the simple steps that remove them.

    The risks in a family garden, and the fixes.

Section 3 of 3

Garden Care and Safety

Keeping a shared garden safe and alive: poisonous plants to know, slug control without pellets, a wildlife corner, and the routine care a family plot needs.

  • A garden with a covered water butt and a fenced pond edge, a child and an adult walking a gravel path between planted borders.

    Garden Care and Safety

    Safety in the Garden

    Garden safety for families: poisonous plants and berries, tools, ponds, water butts and chemicals, with the checks that make a garden safe for young children.

    Plants, tools, water and chemicals: the checks that let children play.

  • A lettuce seedling in a pot surrounded by crushed eggshell with a slug trap sunk into the soil beside it, damp morning light.

    Garden Care and Safety

    Organic Slug Control

    Control slugs and snails without pellets: barriers, traps, timing and the garden wildlife that eats them, plus what actually protects seedlings and pots.

    Barriers, traps, timing and the wildlife that does the work for free.

  • A child crouched beside a small log pile watching a bird bath, wildflowers and tall grasses behind, warm afternoon light.

    Garden Care and Safety

    A Wildlife Garden

    Turn a corner of the garden into a wildlife patch: nectar flowers, a log pile, a shallow water dish and the birds, bees and hedgehogs children can watch.

    Flowers, a log pile, safe water, and the birds and bees that follow.

Open the Garden Care and Safety index

In pictures

Five scenes from the guides

Five photographs from the guides below, each with the page that explains the scene in full.

  • Two children in wellington boots standing at the edge of a small vegetable bed with a trowel and a seed tray

    Scene 1

    The first bed is the hardest

    A patch the size of a door, a trowel that fits a small hand, and a first sowing are enough to start a family garden.

  • A bamboo pole frame tied at the top with young bean plants climbing the base and a child peering inside

    Scene 2

    Build a den that grows

    A circle of canes, a packet of climbing beans and an afternoon of work turn into a leafy room by midsummer.

  • A child tipping a fabric grow bag onto a tarpaulin as pale new potatoes tumble out among compost

    Scene 3

    The bag that gives up its crop

    Potatoes grow happily in a bag on a patio, and the harvest is tipped out in a single, unforgettable moment.

  • A child crouched beside a small log pile watching a bird bath with wildflowers behind

    Scene 4

    Leave a corner wild

    Nectar flowers, a log pile and a shallow dish of water bring bees, birds and frogs into the smallest garden.

  • A wooden sandpit with a lifted lid and two children digging with spades and a toy digger

    Scene 5

    The most used metre of the garden

    A covered sandpit earns its space in a small garden, and it holds a child longer than almost any toy.