This is how Dutch kids enjoy and learn from keeping vegetable gardens

Children are taught how to grow their own vegetables at this Dutch primary school.

These kids know how to grow a carrot

Fruits and vegetables and everything you need can be bought at the supermarket nowadays. Due to this convenience, kids hardly know where their food comes from, much less how to grow it. By teaching them how to grow their own vegetables, their interest in healthy food is sparked. It’s fun, they learn a lot and spend time in nature.

Fresher than at the supermarket

Fruits and vegetables are imported from all over the world: we can buy coconuts and mango’s and much more. But to cut down on emissions it’s better to buy locally grown fruit and vegetables. Even better: grow it yourself!

Every week the kids from this middle school in the Netherlands go to the vegetable garden with their teacher and a volunteer parent. At the vegetable garden they get taught how to plant seeds, get rid of weeds, how and how much to water the plants and the most fun part: how to harvest their own food.

The kids are visibly enjoying spending time tending to their garden and reaping the benefits of their own grown food. They enjoy eating their harvest, not just because they went through all the trouble of planting and growing it themselves, but also because they feel it genuinely tastes better: full of flavours that you simply don’t get at your local supermarket.

A Green movement

This school in Utrecht in the Netherlands isn’t the only school teaching their pupils how to grow their own food. More and more schools are learning that a connection with nature and all the benefits that come from growing your own food is important.  It inspires the kids to eat healthier and may even inspire their parents to start a vegetable garden at home. And it has the important added benefit that spending time outside the classroom, helps kids concentrate better and longer. 

Slowly, the education system is reforming for the better. With more time outside and more focus on the wellbeing of children.