Click below to listen to my 2 min Garden Bite radio show: Gardener gifts for the “littles”!
Don’t forget the little gardeners in your life. I was looking over some of my favorite blogs and information from the University of Minnesota when I found a suggestion for your littles from Extension Educator, Food – Farm Safety, Anne Sawyer.
She has small children that like to help, however, that sometimes means we don’t get as much work done! AND she explained that she doesn’t like the idea of plastics. What she DID want were miniature real tools. I’ve posted about getting the right fitting tools for your little gardeners (in this link is a link to tools for kids 6 to 9) but I hadn’t seen these metal and wood tools that are clearly more work-ably endurable!
The plastics may last but not for the reason we want them to! So there are a couple of companies she suggested. EverEarth Childrens Gardening Bag With Tools set contains a hand rake, a hand scoop, a hand trowel, a small watering can, and a practical garden bag, sized for kids from 36 months old.
EverEarth also offers mini rakes, hoes, shovels and more.
The company is out of the UK. Offering your littles garden equipment to fit them and allowing them to have their own space in the garden is such a wonderful way to connect kids to gardening, which means playing in the dirt, which is good for the soul!
ToySmith is another company she mentioned. They have a tall garden kit for kids with two different types of rakes, a shovel and a hoe, and in fact, have a whole department devoted to exploring the backyard!
There’s a little wheelbarrow, a bird call, a critter case, a bug vacuum and lots more cool kid stuff.
Some of the items can be found at big box stores. Of course, there’s always Amazon. You also may consider your local, smaller boutique stores.