Waldorf Gardening With Children, From Toddlers to Grade 6

Waldorf gardening with children means doing real garden work side by side, through the whole year. A 3-year-old carries the watering can and copies you. A child in grade 1 or 2 has a small patch of radishes and sunflowers. In grade 3 the garden feeds the farming block, and from about grade 5 or 6 your child can take on real jobs: sieving compost, sowing, transplanting and bringing in the harvest. You don't need a big plot. A few pots by the back door are enough to start.

What is Waldorf gardening for children?

It's the ordinary work of digging, sowing, watering and picking, done with your child as part of the week rather than as a lesson.

Gardening has deep roots in Waldorf education. Waldorf Resources, the international Waldorf curriculum site, says it has played "a central and exemplary role" from the beginning. Steiner himself gave the 1924 lectures on agriculture that began biodynamic farming. The aim in school, in that curriculum's words, is "a deep understanding of the workings of nature through predominantly practical activity in the garden."

Many Waldorf schools garden every week. Alabama Waldorf School says students from all grades take part in weekly gardening. At home you can keep the same rhythm: one gardening morning a week, plus the small daily jobs like watering.

What age can children start gardening?

As soon as they can walk beside you. What changes with age is the kind of work they do.

Before age 7: working beside you

A young child learns the garden by copying you. You dig, and they dig next to you. You water, and they water too, often the same plant three times. The job is to let them do real work in a small, safe space.

Bright Water Waldorf School's tips for gardening with young children are practical. Learn a little yourself before your helper joins you. Give them sturdy, child-sized tools. Build small raised beds they can reach into without climbing in and trampling the plants. Keep goals simple, and relax: "Toddlers will pick the first green tomato before it ripens."

Shining Mountain Waldorf School describes a kindergarten class that kept two small containers of herbs and greens by the front door. The children watered them every day and picked kale or spinach for the class soup on Tuesdays. At home, that's a good model. A pot of greens, a daily watering job, and something to put in the soup. The Waldorf kindergarten at home guide shows where a gardening morning fits in the week.

Grades 1 and 2: a patch of their own

Around 6 or 7, many children love having a small patch that's theirs. A square about a metre across is plenty, or a large pot. Let them choose two or three crops and look after them with you.

Choose crops that grow fast. The RHS suggests radishes, which can be ready 4 to 8 weeks after sowing, and sunflowers, which it calls a popular first plant because the seeds come up easily and quickly. Runner beans climb where a child can watch them.

In these years, the garden sits naturally alongside nature walks and nature stories. Many Waldorf schools take a weekly walk with grades 1 and 2, and Richmond Waldorf School is one. The grade 2 nature studies guide shows how walks, a nature table and a few beans fit together in that year.

Grade 3: the garden and the farming block

Grade 3 is the year of the farming block, when children follow food from the field to the table. The grade 3 farming block guide covers the block itself: the story of wheat, baking bread, and the people whose work feeds us.

A home garden adds something the stories can't: a crop your child grew. Richmond Waldorf School gives its third graders a gardening class to go alongside their farming work. At home, try this: plant something in spring, such as a row of beans, a few potatoes or a small square of wheat. Then, if your farming block falls in autumn, your child harvests it during the block. The garden turns the stories into something they grew.

Starpath's grade 3 Farming and Occupations block runs for 15 days and is built around what a community needs, starting with food. You can see how the first day works in the free Farming and Occupations guide. The grade 3 curriculum guide and the best Waldorf homeschool curriculum for grade 3 cover the rest of the year.

Grades 4 and 5: looking more closely

By now your child can start to watch the garden more carefully. How tall did the bean grow this week? Which flowers do the bees go to? A nature journal kept through the growing season is a good home for these notes and drawings.

In grade 5 the botany block brings plants into the main lesson. A home garden gives your child real plants to compare: a moss in the shady corner, a fern, a bean flower. The grade 5 botany guide goes into that block.

Grade 6 and up: real garden work

In many Waldorf schools, gardening becomes a timetabled subject in grade 5 or 6. Waldorf Resources lists the kind of work children do in grade 6: "Sieving and mixing compost," "Sowing and transplanting," harvesting and processing the harvest, and everyday maintenance like weeding. In grade 7 they may prepare produce to sell and learn about humus, soil life and composting.

At home, this is the age to hand over a real job. Your child can run the compost heap, raise seedlings on a windowsill and plant them out, or sell a surplus of courgettes at the gate.

How do you start a children's garden at home?

Choose one of these, whatever space you have:

• A windowsill. Herbs in pots, or a tray of cress or pea shoots.
• A few containers. Shining Mountain notes that herbs, tomatoes and peppers all grow well in small containers.
• A small raised bed. Easy to reach and easy to keep tidy.
• A community garden or allotment. Shining Mountain suggests helping with a school or community garden too.

Then:

1. Start small. One pot or one small bed in the first season.
2. Let your child choose one or two things to grow.
3. Mark the rows clearly, with sticks or string, so small feet know where not to step. Bright Water suggests this too.
4. Give them a daily job, like watering, and a weekly one, like weeding their patch.
5. Eat what you grow. Even three radishes on a plate count.

What can children grow easily in a small garden?

The RHS calls some crops "quick and tasty" for children. Its list includes Swiss chard 'Bright Lights', radish, lettuce, courgettes and runner beans. For flowers it suggests sunflowers, marigolds and poppies. Nasturtiums are fun too. Their flowers are edible and taste peppery.

Big seeds are easiest for small fingers. Beans, sunflowers, courgettes and nasturtiums all have seeds a young child can hold and push into the soil one at a time.

What tools do kids need for gardening?

Keep them real, small and together in one bucket:

• a sturdy child-sized trowel and hand fork
• a small watering can a child can carry when full
• gloves that fit
• a bucket or basket for weeds and for harvest

Tools that bend or break teach a child that garden work isn't real. A small, solid trowel lasts for years.

What are simple garden chores for kids?

• Watering pots and seedlings
• Pulling weeds from their own patch, once they know which plants are weeds
• Putting kitchen scraps on the compost
• Picking beans, peas or strawberries
• Collecting seeds from sunflowers or marigolds at the end of summer
• Sweeping the path and washing the tools

These are good jobs for a weekly gardening morning, and they're the same jobs that turn up in the grade 3 farming block.

How do you make gardening safe for children?

A few habits cover most of it.

• Nothing gets eaten without asking. The RHS advises teaching children "not to play with or eat growing plants." In a garden full of berries and flowers, the rule is to ask a grown-up first.
• Wash hands after soil. Victoria's Better Health Channel advises washing hands with soap and water after handling soil, and before eating. It also advises a mask and gloves when handling soil, compost or potting mix.
• Lock garden chemicals away, on a high shelf behind a locked door.
• Keep children clear of machines like mowers and trimmers.

Sometimes a child eats part of a plant you're not sure about. The RHS says to seek medical advice straight away and take a piece of the plant with you.

The garden and the festival year

A garden follows the same year as the Waldorf festivals. Seeds go in around Easter and May Day in the northern hemisphere. The harvest comes in around Michaelmas. You can bring a few of the first beans to the nature table, and the last sunflower heads for a harvest festival. The Waldorf festivals page walks through the year, and the festival guides have a page for each one. In the southern hemisphere, follow your own seasons.

A way to begin this week

Find one pot, a bag of compost and a packet of radish or bean seeds. Sow them with your child this weekend. Give your child the job of watering, at the same time each day. Then, in a few weeks, pick what grew and eat it together.