Make this the year you get the kids into gardening - it’s a wonderful way to spend time with them as well as teaching them all sorts of things from the way the natural world works to where their food comes from.
All you need is a small area, say 1m x 1m, marked off with a low fence or coloured pebbles. A raised bed defines the area clearly - railway sleepers double up as comfy child-sized seats.
Let the kids choose what to grow: you can always bring them into our garden centre here in Lymington and fire them up with inspiration from our kids’ range of seeds and colourful tools and accessories. Annual flower mixes give quick, colourful results, and food is always popular: child-friendly fruit and veg that are easy to grow and delicious to eat include peas, French beans and strawberries.
Have fun with it too: get them to ‘write’ their own names in seedlings sown in drills the shape of letters, hold a pumpkin-growing competition, or get them painting pretty plant labels on strips of wood. Who knows, you may be sowing the seeds of a passion for growing things which will last them all their lives.