Wee love everything... : Growing as you grow

Harris is an outdoor boy and he's a little worker, so we're loving having an extra pair of little hands helping with all sorts of jobs. I thought this would be the perfect time to blog about what we've learned about gardening with a toddler.

Some useful tools
To have fun in the garden, you don't need much more than a pair of hands that like getting dirty.

But if you're in the garden a lot and would like some tools to add to the fun, here are a few that we love.

Harris is a lucky boy and these were all gifts, so I don't know where to buy them from. He has a little trowel that has been brilliant, I'd definitely recommend getting a metal one for serious digging as Harris got a bit frustrated when the plastic ones didn't dig deep enough. There are loads of little wheelbarrow sets that are great value, the one we have came with a spade, rake, bucket and watering can. The watering can is filled and emptied numerous times a day, and the wheelbarrow is used to transport everything from weeds and compost to water and footballs. It's also great to incorporate any toys you already have, dumper trucks are brilliant for moving stones and dirt. And as we love to learn with book, our favourite for the garden is My First Book about things that grow. The book helps explain seeds and how plants grow as well as identifying lots of flowers, fruit, vegetables, trees and leaves - I'm learning too. Plus it comes with stickers!

Growing vegetables
We were keen to teach Harris a little bit about growing his own food. He helps in our veggie patch and he's pretty good at knowing where to walk, what to water etc, but supervision is vital.

There's loads of jobs that toddlers can help with, filling seed trays with compost, digging holes, planting seeds, watering and of course picking the veg.

To encourage creativity and give Harris some autonomy, we made some spaces that he can do whatever he likes in. We've got a big trough where Harris is growing a couple of different mint plants and quite a few weeds. The mint is growing really well and doesn't seem to mind if it gets watered 10 times in a day or is forgotten about for a week. Harris loves picking leaves to smell. And I like making hot drinks with them.

Pots and containers are great for gardens of all sizes. Harris planted some radish and lettuce seeds in his pots. He waters them and we talk about how much they are growing. We pick lettuce from the garden everyday and have eaten all the radishes. Harris was never keen on salad before, but now he eats the radishes first and gets super excited to see lettuce on his plate - must be connected.

Planting flowers in unusual containers like these old wellies makes watering even more fun.

And turning jobs into play with our favourite toys meant that Harris happily delivered compost in his dumper truck while we planted out loads of flowers in our garden.

Sometimes we need to do jobs and Harris doesn't want to help, so we've set up lots of fun areas for him to play, make a mess and relax in while we get on.

Harris' tiny shell garden

Fill containers with water and mud and enjoy hours of play

Paint brush and water - so simple and no mess

A plank of wood is great for balancing

This waterwall was so easy to make, just a few plastic bottles, yogurt pots, an old hand wash container and some plant pots screwed onto a fence - hours of fun!

My next idea is a noisy wall, but until then we have some tins and old spoons hanging from trees, ready to be hit with a stick.

I sanded some logs to make a little snack area for nice days, Harris likes to sit on what I intended to be the table, but it's all good.

When we're not gardening or playing, we enjoy getting to know the creatures in the garden, our favourite being wriggly worms...

Lifting up a big stone can uncover a whole new world of insects, we spend ages watching them crawl around. And of course, there are loads of birds that visit our garden too. We thought we'd try to get a better look by enticing them in with some food and found this really easy bird cake on the RSPB website.