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Children and Youth Gardening

Royal Botanical Gardens Celebrates 76 Years of Children and Youth Gardening!

The longest running gardening program for kids in Canada! Since 1947 children from our local communities of all ages have come to RBG to plant, cultivate, and harvest in their own garden allotments to learn about horticulture and urban farming. Children and youth will learn to grow their own food, prepare healthy, easy snacks, to cook and preserve with homegrown veggies, explore, play, and hone their early gardening skills.

RBG has more than 50 garden allotments with a mix between raised beds, accessible garden beds, and large, open allotments for our children and youth to garden in at the Green Thumb Club and Teaching Garden, both located in Hendrie Park.

About the Programs

Young children Holding Up Carrots

Kinder-garden-ing

  • Ages 4 to 6 years, and their caregivers
  • Tuesday evenings (seasonal)
  • Autumn session begins: September 19

Learn More

Imagination grows at RBG where our Kinder-garden-ing programs support outdoor garden-based learning for children aged 3.8-5 years of age. Through our fun programs we like to encourage children to get involved with plants through hands-on garden activities and art. Each family will receive a 3’x5′ allotment to share and grow during their time as an RBG gardener, with lots of opportunity to harvest fresh vegetables to take home.

(Previously Cockleshells and Silverbells)

Child planting into raised garden bed, sectioned out with string

Junior Gardener’s Club

  • Ages 9 to 13, drop off
  • Fall session begins: September 16

Learn More

For over 75 years RBG has been cultivating new gardeners in this youth-led gardening program. Located in the 1.3-acre RBG Teaching Garden, our Junior Gardeners have the opportunity to grow in raised-beds or the in-ground. We’ll practice advanced garden techniques such as no-till gardening, integrated pest management, crop protection and more! We’ve designed this program to model our local community gardens where our garden “committee” of youth drives our program goals creating a place that is uniquely their own: a youth community garden. Come winter we shift indoors to the “secret greenhouses” to focus on plant propagation and cooking.

  • Young children Holding Up Carrots
  • Girl planting in veggie garden
  • Monarch Butterfly on Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
  • Childrens Gardening Program In Vegetable Garden - Credit to Markzelinski
  • Three Tomatoes On Vine

Register for Children’s Gardening Programs

More Family Fun

Every trip to RBG is a whole new adventure! Whether you’re visiting an interactive exhibit, learning a new skill, or just exploring the great outdoors, RBG offers year-round experiences that bring your family closer to nature.