DIY Network

Gardening With Kids Joe Lamp'l shows some youngsters how to make a theme garden and explains the concept of stewardship. From "Fresh from the Garden" episode DFFG-309

Gardening is an activity that people of all ages, from preschoolers to old-time green thumbs, can enjoy. Kids are naturally curious and love to learn by doing. One especially fun activity for young kids is to create a theme garden; and one perennially popular theme for kids is a pizza garden.

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Joe Lamp'l and several young friends join forces to create a pizza garden: circular in outline, just like a pizza, it contains vegetables and herbs that are often used in pizza toppings. For their garden, Joe and the children plant tomatoes, peppers, basil and oregano.

Figure A

1. To make a pizza garden, begin by marking out a circle. First tie a string to a stick; for a 6'-wide pizza garden, cut a string so that it's 3' long. Have one child stand in the center of the space and hold one end of the string while someone else holds the opposite end and walks around, marking the edge of the circle as he or she goes. The edge can then be marked with rocks placed around the perimeter, and the pizza garden can be divided into "slices" by the addition of more rocks or markers (figure A).

Yellow marigolds can be planted to look like Cheddar cheese.

2. Fill the garden with vegetables and herbs that make good pizza toppings, such as tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, basil and oregano. Also ask your child to use his or her imagination to plant something that looks like cheese and pepperoni: for instance, round terracotta saucers can be used to look like pepperoni or pine straw can be scattered as mulch to look like shredded mozzarella.

Many other fun theme gardens can be used to interest children. Examples include an ABC garden, using vegetables that start with the first three letters of the alphabet: asparagus, butter beans, broccoli, cabbage and carrots are all good choices. Or you can spell out a child's name with vegetables: for "Joe" you could plant Jerusalem artichokes, okra and eggplant. Especially with young children whose imagination is unfettered, the sky's the limit.

Finished Pizza Garden

As kids get older, their sense of discovery stays with them as they work in a garden. But they are able to understand more advanced scientific concepts and to see broader connections between what happens in their small garden plot and the larger world.

One important concept is the idea of stewardship. Have your child look up the meaning of the word and explain it in his or her own words. In the context of gardening, one common explanation might be that stewardship means taking responsibility for protecting the environment.