Super Mom Hacks

Why Your Kids Will Love A Tasting Garden

Does your family have a Tasting Garden yet? If not, and you have a little chunk of ground (or even a large pot and a sunny spot), you need one. Our Tasting Garden is the girls’ favorite spot in the front yard, and Essie especially loves to sample its goodies and share them with our neighbors.

Even if you’re new to gardening, all you need is a local nursery or garden store with some helpful staff to point you in the right direction. (I was never the “gardening” type until Kimmie was born, and afternoons working on the gardens around our new home were the only time I got a break from full-time childcare!) And learning along with your children is a great way to teach them about the importance of learning new things and acquiring new skills at any age!

So if you’re ready to find out what a tasting garden is, how to make your own, and why it will become your kids’ favorite spot in the yard (while teaching them about healthy and adventurous eating!), read on!

Does your family have a Tasting Garden? Ours is the girls' favorite spot in the front yard. Here's why YOUR kids will love having a Tasting Garden, too.

What is a Tasting Garden?

If you’ve ever read Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, remember how soon after she falls down the rabbit hole, she finds a bottle labeled “DRINK ME” and a cake labeled “EAT ME”?

Well, that’s the idea behind what the girls call Alice’s Tasting Garden, after the story of Alice and the cake that came with instructions to eat it up.

Our tasting garden is basically a small herb garden outside our front door. Except for the hyacinths and daffodils that bloom there every spring, everything in Alice’s Tasting Garden is edible.

How our Tasting Garden came to be

Our home has lots of little garden beds along the foundation. The ones in the front yard came stocked with spring-blooming bulbs – and a lot of weeds.

I had almost zero hands-on gardening experience when we moved in just before Kimmie’s birth. In the years since then, I’ve spent a lot of time playing catch-up as I’ve redone our gardens one at a time.

A few summers ago, several things came together all at once:

That’s when I had one of those “aha” moments: What if I made that strip into an herb garden? And what if the girls helped me plan, plant, and tend it?

Our newly-planted tasting garden in 2015

Creating our Tasting Garden

1. Do your homework, and know what you’ve got

2. Shop to fit your needs

This year’s new plants: stevia, cilantro, parsley (all annuals), and garlic chives (Essie couldn’t resist).

Tips for making your own Tasting Garden

There are lots of options for pre-planted herb container gardens.
“Mama, I found the stevia!”

Why we love our Tasting Garden

Essie: “The stevia. That’s my favorite part.”

(She admits that she also likes going to the garden store, and helping to plant and water, but the stevia is definitely her favorite part. Closely followed by the chives.)

Kimmie: “It’s fun to help water and plant in the tasting garden. And especially to snack on the stuff in there!”

As for me, I love the fact that the girls have learned to try a bunch of new flavors. And that they now enjoy these flavors in cooked dishes, too. And that when they’re helping me to cook dinner, I can send them outside to snip some fresh herbs for me from just outside the front step. And that they like teaching their friends about all the cool things available to sample in our tasting garden.

What about you? Have you tried a “tasting garden” with your kids before? Do you kids help you tend an herb garden (or other garden of edibles)? Let us know in the comments!

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