Delightfully educational!
These days many primary schools provide opportunities for young children to grow plants and vegetables so I can imagine teachers would find this a useful teaching-aid to encourage youngsters to think about all aspects of gardening. Divided into short sections, the simply-explained advice includes how to encourage beneficial bugs (and how deter unwelcome ones using natural methods rather than chemicals!), understanding how to look after the soil so that their plants will grow, how to care for seeds and plants once planted, what tools are needed for specific jobs, how (and why) to make a compost heap and much more. I think the only essential advice which was missing was how important it is to clean tools after using them!
Children can learn that they don’t need a large garden to enjoy gardening, that both edible and purely decorative plants can be grown in pots, window boxes, cans, glass jars … even old wellies! One of the lovely things about this delightful, beautifully illustrated and educational book is that it really does make gardening sound like a fun activity! I also appreciated the fact that although the language used in the text is age-appropriate, there’s never any hint of ‘dumbing-down’ … in fact, I think that many adults who are new to gardening would find this book useful!