Square Foot Gardening with Kids: Learn Together: - Gardening basics - Science and math - Water conservation - Self-sufficiency - Healthy eating

by Mel Bartholomew

Mel Bartholomew's top-selling Square Foot Gardening books have made his revolutionary garden system available to millions of people.



In Square Foot Gardening with Kids, Mel reveals his tips, tricks, and fun projects in one of his most cherished teaching youngsters to build and grow a SFG of their own.

The easy geometry of the gridded box breaks the complex world of gardening into digestible bites for enthusiastic young learners, and the sequence of tasks required to grow plants from seeds is repeatable and reassuring.

Kids learn many valuable life lessons when tending their own garden -- such as the importance of following instructions and doing your chores, basic skills like counting and water conservation, and learning to appreciate the nature of food and why it is important to respect it.

Most importantly though, they learn that growing your own food is both fun and rewarding.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Childrens

196 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes the “kid” version loses the content. This was a let down.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

The central concept of this book is extremely simple: it's container gardening, with the container divided into square-foot sections of different plants. The kids' edition uses a smaller container (3x3 instead of the adult 4x4, to accommodate shorter arms) and includes structured learning activities to use with different age levels. The lessons are not particularly inventive and seem somewhat contrived, unnecessarily turning a natural learning experience into a more academic one.

The book gives some useful language for talking with children about how to treat plants (i.e., like babies or pets) and may be useful to adults who need models for introducing children to gardening. The practical content, however, is mixed with a healthy dose of self-promotion and faux-academic assignments. A basic book on container gardening would be a worthier investment.

[Alexandria Skinner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I was really hoping for a bit more creative and inspirational projects to do with children than the ones offered in this book. In my view, it does not add enough beyond what one could learn from the adult version of square foot gardening, to make it worthwhile to take up the space on my library shelf.

[Angela]

I got started gardening years ago following Mel Bartholomew's square foot gardening system, and I still use a lot of the principles today. But I feel like this book is kinda just a reprint of his earlier info with some (not-that-great) ideas for kids thrown in. I do like the tips on building beds, etc. safely alongside kids. But instead of focusing on the joy of gardening with kids, there are ideas for how you can use square foot gardening to teach each age bracket things like fractions, decimals, charts, etc. Might be useful for homeschoolers...?

[Mary Dooley iv · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never deluded myself that I'd be a successful homeschooling parent, so I'm not sure why I thought I'd somehow get my children to participate in planting a garden-- maybe it was for my own "inner child?" Even so, I'm just not that structured. I did try a raised garden similar to the type proposed in the book, but I- alone & unaccompanied by kids- basically went my own way, once the soil was ready. It's more peaceful and relaxing that way!

[Ietrio · Rating 2 out of 5]

nice, yet quite deceitful. the square foot gardening is done in boxes at lest 3 feet by 3 feet. and, of course, the boy does the manly things with the man and the girl can watch. after all he is the doer and she is the breeder. if there would be an aftermath to this book, the girl will cook and the boy will enjoy the soup.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've read the original book, you don't need to read this one. But it's great and full of ideas to incorporate kids into the process. And also how to teach them all sorts of things. It's definitely a good book to bring into a homeschooling environment, I think.

[A.E.M. A.E.M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent ideas for gardening with kids, and easily modifiable.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read and full of fun ideas. I have been debating how to do our garden as we just moved into a new home. I enjoyed exploring SFG while reading about ways to get the kids excited about gardening.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great concept. I borrowed this from the library because the hold list for the original/updated "Square Foot Gardening" book is forever long. Some of the info is in the book and the principals (which I was after) are there. This book just has you use a smaller box for kids and has a lot of suggestions (some good, some sort of whatever) for engaging kids in gardening and using it as a teaching tool for many other disciplines. I don't have kids, so I'm probably not the best reviewer for this one!

[Miranda · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've read Square Foot Gardening, you already know the basics, and probably won't need to read this one unless you want the extra lesson help. This is the same thing as the adult book on a smaller scale. The added bonus here is that they've put together mini lessons you can teach to your kids or use in a classroom setting. They cover math, science, economics, art, recycling, and a bunch more. This would be great for homeschoolers, or for those who want to add more to what their children are already learning at school. For me, I just wanted to see if there were any extra tips I didn't catch in the first book.

[Penny McGill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one had a great feel to it but was a little too exact for us. If a young family were interested in the beginning steps of getting a garden together then this might suit. We are a little too free-form (destined to fail, spending too much money on seeds and plants, endlessly thinking that strawberries will succeed but they don't) for this book.

[Kenway · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you own Mel's other books, don't bother with this one. It's the same info. just smaller boxes & kid friendly plants.

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found this to be an easy read with lots of good information!

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Using this book

I am using this book to set up a school garden program at my children's school. It is an excellent resource

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've read the main SFG book, you don't need this, but I'm still happy I read it. It was a quick, easy read, full of Mel's optimism. Mostly it made me think about all the things my kids already learned last year while gardening. There were a few nice botany pictures tossed in, a few nice ideas, and I learned the difference between a spore and a seed. The main SFG book actually does a very nice job talking about kids and gardening; this just elaborated a bit more.