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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.

Little Sprouts

Ages 18 mo. to 3 years, and their caregivers.

Little Sprouts provides young children, toddler to early ages, and their parents/caregivers with hands-on, garden-based learning opportunities in a community food growing garden, including planting, tending, harvesting and cooking locally-grown foods. For families that have limited access to green spaces, Little Sprouts provides important first experiences and first lessons about growing foods and caring for our environment.

Seasonal - Monday mornings.

Kinder-garden-ing

Ages 4 to 6 years. Drop off and multi-generational programming available.

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 opportuntiy to harves fresh vegetables to take home.

Seasonal - Tuesday evenings or Wednesday mornings.
(previously Cockleshells and Silverbells)

Sow & Grow

Ages 6 to 8 years, drop off.

We are all about building relationships and strong foundations in the garden. This weekly drop-off program digs deeper into the practice and theory of gardening focusing on the ground up: soil. From building mud castles to mucking around in the mulch, Sow and Grow provides gentle (and sometimes dirty) independent learning to discover the world beneath our feet and the organisms that call the Green Thumb Club home. Children will garden and grow in a 5'x6' in-ground allotment honing their early gardening skills before joining the Junior Gardeners Club.

Seasonal - Thursday evenings.

Junior Gardeners Club

Ages 9 to 13, drop off.

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.

Year-round - Saturday mornings.

  • 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

Currently Available:

Junior Gardeners (Ages 9 to 12, drop-off)

 

Program Dates Program Time

Fall Session

Available Saturdays

September 17, 24, October 8, 22, November 5, 19, 26

9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Winter Session

Available Saturdays

Jan 14, 28, Feb 4, 11, March 4 and 11.

9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Pricing and Registration

Pre-registration is required for all children and youth gardening programs, available online via the links below. If you have any questions about the registration process, please give us a call at 905-527-1158 ext 270.

RBG Members receive 10% off when using the RBG Experiences (courses and programs) discount code, sent with the latest digital edition of Paradise Found, or in your Membership purchase / renewal paperwork.

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.