Start indoors
Children have the same level of patience as a spaniel waiting to go for a walk. They need pretty immediate results for any small amount of nurturing and the best place to start is with cress.

Cress egg heads
Fill an empty egg shell with damp cotton wool and then sprinkle cress seeds on top. The cress will look like hair in no time and you can decorate as you like. You can also obviously eat the cress.Once you have perfected cress egg heads you can move onto a more adventurous indoor plant – insect eaters. What could be cooler than growing something that can actually eat flies (eventually). You can always tell your eldest that it could even grow big enough to eat their baby sister.

Venus Fly Traps
At the garden centre ask for a Venus fly trap seedling and carnivorous plant compost (see, already it sounds good). Then plant the seedling and ONLY water it with rain water. It will
take a while to get big enough but in the meantime you can tell gruesome stories about when the hairs on the leaves are triggered they snap shut on their prey and then slowly dissolve it. So once you’ve ignited your children’s interest in gruesome growing you can move outdoors.

Get the right gear
There are lots of different children’s sets on the market complete with gloves, trowels, watering cans, spades and even wheel barrows. Look out for children’s gardening belts which will make them feel a bit more professional (and hopefully will mean some of the tools return to their rightful home). wwwsandedge.com; www.spottyboxes.com;
www.elc.co.uk; and www.justpals.co.uk.
Nothing is more useful than a washing-up bottle of water or even a water pistol. Your children can then happily water any precious seedlings without drenching them completely. Although accept they will drench each other.

Give them some space
It doesn’t matter what size your garden is as long as you can allocate a small area specifically for your children, where they can dig away without fear of ruining your precious borders.

A sandpit garden
Infuriated by sand being trodden through the house or the cats using your sandpit as a loo? Then turn your sandpit into a garden instead. Empty the sand, drill some holes in the bottom and raise onto a couple of old bricks. Then add a layer of stones and fill it with soil.

A wheel barrow garden
This is even better as you can move it around (and even take it to school if you’re feeling particularly Alpha Mummyish).

A water garden
Obviously not for babies and toddlers but for slightly older children this is perfect. Use an old baby bath, a butler’s sink if you’re feeling extra stylish, or a washing up bowl. Put it in
a shady place with some rocks and stones at the bottom then fill up with water. You can then buy a ready-planted basket of mixed pond plants at a garden centre.Even better is to fill it up with some pond water and wait for the tadpoles. BUT don’t forget to build some stones up one side so once they become frogs they can get out. We didn’t think of this and came back from holiday to a trough full of dead frogs.