Tips to grow veg and herbs with the family  By Jane Perrone

I’ve teamed up with Mash Direct http://www.mashdirect.com/growyourown the award-winning ‘field-to-fork’ vegetable accompaniments brand, to help them launch their Grow Your Own Veg campaign.

Growing delicious veg is the perfect activity for getting the whole family involved. Here’s my top ten tips on how to get children growing – and eating! – food.

1. MAKE IT FUN!

Children’s attention spans are shorter than ours, so plan for short bursts of targeted activity. And if seed sowing turns into mud pie-making session, or you end up watching the birds in the garden, don’t worry – just have fun!

2. LET THERE BE MESS

Many parents worry about children getting their hands dirty, especially since the pandemic, but there is lots of scientific evidence that getting our hands in the dirt is good for us, so put on their oldest clothes and get stuck in!

3. KEEP IT SIMPLE

Keep it simple with a couple of different edible crops and perhaps a flower such as nasturtiums or sunflowers to start with. Larger seeds that little hands can easily handle are ideal: think courgettes, pumpkins, beans and peas: all of these will germinate quicker if they are soaked in water for a few hours before sowing. If you want to sow smaller seeds such as lettuce and radishes, mix them with some fine sand to make them easier to sow.

4. START SMALL

If you’ve never gardened before, start with pea shoots: they’re easy, and quick, producing a harvest in two to three weeks. Buy a box of dried peas from the pulses aisle at the supermarket, soak a handful in water overnight and sprinkle over a tray of compost (you can use a recycled plastic food tray, just make sure to add drainage holes in the bottom). Then cover over with a layer of compost about 1cm deep. Place in a sunny spot indoors or outside, keep the compost moist and within a couple of weeks, the peas will produce shoots. Get children to snip off the shoots a pair of scissors or their finger and thumb, and encourage them to have a taste – they’re crunchy and fresh and taste just like regular peas. If you leave the lowest set of leaves behind when snipping, you’ll get another harvest too.

5. START SMALL

Offering a choice of what to grow is empowering, especially for older children: maybe they want to grow a lemon tree or a blackberry bush for making their favourite ice cream, or basil for their favourite homemade pasta sauce.

6. TEACH RECYCLING

You don’t need to buy fancy containers for your crops: an old plastic kitchen bin is ideal for growing a single courgette plant or a couple of potato tubers, and you can raid the recycling bin for plastic food trays to use as seed trays. Just make sure an adult punches some drainage holes in the bottom before starting. When it comes to tools, a trowel, a fork and a hoe will be enough to get you started: if you don’t have these to hand, improvise! An old serving spoon makes a great digging tool for children, and a plastic milk jug is ideal for watering plants.

7. MAKE IT PERSONAL

Get children to write their own labels, count out seeds, measure the length of bean shoots and decorate their own plant pots with a lick of paint – this way you can slip in an impromptu maths, handwriting or art lesson. (They’re also more likely to taste vegetables they feel they’ve tended!).

8. MAKE PLANT CHECKING AN ACTIVITY OF THE DAY

Try to get into the habit of checking your plants daily as a family, and encouraging children to observe changes as they grow – you’ll also spot problems such as pests more quickly. Take photos so you can compare growth week by week.

9. MAKE A WINDOW GARDEN

There are also lots of vegetable scraps you can sprout for a windowsill edible garden, too, from the bases of celery and onion to the tops of pineapples and carrots.

10. EXPERIMENT AND HAVE FUN!

Don’t be afraid to experiment: not everything will grow, some crops may be munched by slugs or wiped out by a late frost, but this is an opportunity to talk to children about resilience and how to cope when things go wrong, as well as encouraging them to try a few more veggies. You’ll learn lots along the way, and have lots of fun in the process too.

From (24^th May – 2^nd July), Mash Direct is challenging individuals to grow their own vegetables and herbs in their gardens, allotments and window sills. If they showcase the evidence on social media, tagging @mashdirect and #GrowWithMash, they will be placed in a draw to win free gardening tools and Mash Direct products.