Growing with Kids: Where Our Food Comes From
For parents, grandparents and teachers with children of about 6 to 12. How a seed becomes supper, how southern Alberta’s dry prairie became one of Canada’s great food-growing regions, and simple crops, experiments and outings that help kids see where their lunch really comes from.
On this page
Why garden with kids?
Most children today have never seen a carrot still in the ground or a potato before it’s dug. Growing even one pot of beans changes that. Kids who grow vegetables are often more willing to taste them, and a garden teaches patience, cause and effect, and a bit of science, without anyone calling it a lesson.
- Give them their own space. A pot, a corner of the bed, or a row with their name on a sign. Ownership matters more than size.
- Choose fast, big results. Radishes in a month, sunflowers taller than Dad, a pumpkin they can carve. Save slow, fussy crops for later.
- Let it be messy. Crooked rows and over-planted seeds are part of learning. The plants are forgiving.
- Keep sessions short. Fifteen minutes of watering, looking and picking beats an hour of weeding.
- Eat it together. The moment a child eats a pea straight from the pod is the whole point.
From seed to supper
A seed is a baby plant packed in a lunch box. Inside is a tiny root and shoot, plus a store of food to get started. It waits, sometimes for years, until it gets what it needs to wake up:
Water
The seed soaks up water, swells and splits its coat. That’s the signal to start growing.
Warmth
Every seed has a favourite temperature. Peas sprout in cool April soil; beans and corn wait for warm soil in late May or June.
Air
Seeds need oxygen to “breathe.” That’s why seeds in soggy, waterlogged soil often rot instead of sprouting.
Notice what’s not on the list: light and soil. Most seeds sprout in the dark, using their own packed lunch. Once the first leaves open, the plant needs sunlight to make more food.
How a plant makes its own food
Plants are the only living things in the garden that make their own food. Their leaves are like tiny solar-powered kitchens. They take in sunlight, water pulled up from the roots, and a gas from the air called carbon dioxide, the same gas we breathe out. With those three things, the green parts of the leaf make sugar to grow on. That’s called photosynthesis, which means “putting together with light.” As a bonus, the plant lets out oxygen, which we breathe in.
So when you eat a carrot, you’re eating sunshine that the leaves turned into sugar and stored in the root for later.
Plants and people are a team. We breathe out carbon dioxide, and plants use it. Plants breathe out oxygen, and we use it.
Wonder: If a plant makes its food in its leaves, why are carrots, potatoes and beets so sweet and full of food underground?
Try this: Put a clear plastic bag over a few leaves of a garden plant on a sunny morning and tie it loosely. Check after lunch. Where did the water drops come from?
How a dry prairie feeds a country
Lethbridge gets only about 375 mm of rain and snow a year. That’s semi-arid, close to desert dry. Left alone, the land around us is short-grass prairie, the kind of grassland bison grazed for thousands of years. So how do farmers here grow sugar beets, potatoes and sweet corn?
The answer is irrigation. Snow melts in the Rocky Mountains each spring and runs down rivers like the Oldman and the St. Mary. Dams and reservoirs store that water, and a huge network of canals carries it out across the prairie to farm fields. Farmers then water their crops with sprinklers, including the big wheeled “pivots” that leave green circles you can see from a plane.
Water from the St. Mary River supplies the St. Mary River Irrigation District, the largest in the province. The Oldman River supplies the Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District, north and west of the city. People have been building these canals since the late 1800s and early 1900s, and they turned a dry grassland into one of the most varied farming regions in Canada.
Wonder: The water in a Lethbridge farm field might have been snow on a mountain a few months ago. Where else do you think that snowmelt ends up? (Hint: think about the water in your tap.)
Try this: Next time you drive out of the city in summer, count the irrigation pivots and canals you can see. Then look for a field that isn’t irrigated. What looks different?
What grows around Lethbridge
Sugar beets
Fat white roots full of sugar. Canada’s only sugar beet factory is in Taber, just east of Lethbridge. The beets are washed, sliced and cooked to pull the sugar out, and it ends up as the white sugar in your kitchen.
Potatoes
Southern Alberta grows a lot of potatoes, and many of them become french fries and other frozen potato products made at plants in the region.
Corn
Taber corn is famous across Western Canada, and the town celebrates it every summer. Lots of field corn is also grown here, much of it chopped up as silage to feed cattle.
Wheat and barley
Wheat becomes flour for bread, pasta and crackers. Barley feeds cattle and is used to make malt. Cereals such as wheat and barley cover more irrigated acres in Alberta than any other crop group.
Canola
Those bright yellow fields in July are canola. Its tiny seeds are pressed for cooking oil, a Canadian invention.
Pulses
Dry beans, peas and other pulses are grown here too. Like garden peas, they make their own nitrogen fertilizer with help from root bacteria.
Forage
Hay, alfalfa and silage corn feed the region’s cattle. Forages cover nearly a third of Alberta’s irrigated acres.
Cattle and feedlots
The country around Lethbridge, especially the area north of the city, is one of the busiest cattle-feeding areas in Canada, dotted with feedlots. Feedlots are large pens where cattle are fed grain and silage before they’re sold for beef.
Dairy
Dairy farms in the region milk cows twice a day or more. Their milk becomes the milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream in Alberta stores.
Bees and pollinators
Alberta is Canada’s biggest honey producer: in 2024 it made about 43% of Canada’s honey. Southern Alberta farmers also raise small alfalfa leafcutter bees, which pollinate alfalfa grown for seed and canola grown for seed. Without bees, many crops couldn’t make seeds at all.
What it means for you: a summer drive around Lethbridge is a field trip. Stop safely by a field (never go in without permission) and see if your kids can name the crop. Sugar beets, potatoes, corn, wheat and canola all look very different by July.
Activity: where did my lunch come from?
Pick an ordinary lunch, like a ham and cheese sandwich with a glass of milk and an apple, and trace each part back to where it grew. Kids are usually amazed how many plants, animals and people are behind one sandwich.
| Part of lunch | Made from | Which grew from… | Could it come from near Lethbridge? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bread | Flour, water, yeast, a little sugar and oil | Wheat seeds (flour), sugar beets (sugar), canola seeds (oil) | Yes: wheat, sugar beets and canola are all grown here. |
| Butter | Cream | Milk from dairy cows, which eat hay, silage and grain | Yes. |
| Cheese | Milk | Dairy cows | Yes. |
| Ham | Pork | Pigs, which eat barley, wheat and peas | Yes: pigs are raised here and fed local grain. |
| Lettuce and tomato | Vegetables | Plants grown in fields or greenhouses | In summer, yes. In winter, often from far away. |
| Milk | Milk | Dairy cows | Yes. |
| Apple | Fruit | An apple tree | Hardy apples grow in Lethbridge yards, but most store apples come from B.C., Washington or farther. |
- Draw the lunch in the middle of a big sheet of paper.
- Draw arrows out to each ingredient, then out again to the plant or animal it came from.
- Go one more step: what did the animal eat? Where did the plant get its water? (Often, an irrigation canal fed by the mountains.)
- Add the people: farmers, truck drivers, bakers, cheesemakers, store clerks.
- Colour everything that could come from within an hour’s drive of Lethbridge. Usually that’s most of the page.
Easy first crops for kids
Radishes
Up in days, ready in about four weeks. Sow in late April or May. Perfect for impatient gardeners.
Peas
Big seeds, easy to plant in cool spring soil. Sweet peas eaten straight from the pod rarely make it to the kitchen.
Sunflowers
Plant in late May; they can grow taller than a grown-up by August. Birds love the seeds in fall.
Carrots
Tiny seeds and slow to sprout, but pulling up a carrot is pure magic. Try short, round types in heavy clay.
Potatoes
Plant a seed potato in May and dig for treasure in September. Kids love the hunt.
Strawberries and beans
Strawberries come back every year. Bush beans are quick and productive. Both are fun to pick.
A pumpkin
Start indoors in early May or sow outside in early June. Choose a smaller, short-season type so it ripens before frost.
Nasturtiums and marigolds
Big seeds, bright flowers, very easy. Nasturtium flowers and leaves are edible and peppery.
A kid-sized garden plan
A bed about 1.2 m by 2.4 m (the size of a sheet of plywood) is plenty for a child. Narrow enough to reach the middle from either side, big enough for real harvests. Here’s one plan, with the tall plants on the north side so they don’t shade the short ones, and on the west to block the wind.
| Row (north to south) | What to plant | When |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (north edge) | Sunflowers, or peas on a small fence | Peas late April; sunflowers late May |
| 2 | Bush beans and one cherry tomato in a cage | Late May to early June |
| 3 | Carrots with a few radishes mixed in | Early to mid-May |
| 4 | Lettuce and spinach | Late April to May, and again in August |
| 5 (south edge) | Radishes, nasturtiums and marigolds | May to June |
Make it theirs: a painted name sign, a “harvest board” to record what was picked each week, and a rain gauge to check after storms (compare it to our weather station). Plant timing for every crop is on the direct-sowing list.
Garden safety
- Gloves for digging. Soil can hold sharp stones, glass, thistles and cat droppings. Wash hands after gardening and before eating.
- Sun and water. Our sun is strong at 900+ m elevation. Hats, sunscreen and a water bottle, and garden in the morning or evening in July heat.
- Kid-sized tools, and a rule: tools are carried pointing down, and rakes and hoes are laid with the teeth facing the ground.
- Never eat a berry, leaf or mushroom without asking a grown-up first. Some look just like food and aren’t.
- Know the poisonous plants. Common ones in Lethbridge yards include lily-of-the-valley (all parts, including the red berries), foxglove, monkshood, delphinium and larkspur, daffodil bulbs, and the leaves of rhubarb, potatoes and tomatoes. Along wet ground in the river valley, water hemlock is deadly. Chokecherry fruit is safe once pitted and cooked, but the pits, leaves and twigs are poisonous.
- Thorns and nettles. Roses, raspberries, gooseberries and stinging nettle bite back. Show kids what they look like.
- Water safety. Rain barrels need secure lids. Small children can drown in very little water.
- No chemicals. Our garden guide never uses sprays. Still rinse everything you pick before eating it and wash hands after gardening, because soil, birds and a neighbour’s lawn treatment can all reach the garden.
If you think a child has eaten part of a poisonous plant, call the Poison and Drug Information Service (PADIS) for Alberta at 1-800-332-1414, or 911 if they’re having trouble breathing or are unresponsive. Bring a piece of the plant with you if you go to the hospital.
Fun experiments
Bean in a jar
Line a clear jar with a damp paper towel and slide a few dry beans between the towel and the glass. Keep it damp. In a few days, roots go down and shoots go up. Turn the jar on its side for a day: the root bends to grow down again. That’s gravity at work.
Carrot-top regrowing
Ask a grown-up to cut the top 2 cm off a carrot, then set it in a saucer of water on a sunny windowsill. Within a week, feathery new leaves sprout. Wonder: will it grow a new carrot? (It won’t; the root is already gone. But the leaves keep growing from stored food.)
Colour-changing celery
Put a celery stalk with leaves in a glass of water with lots of food colouring. After a day, the leaves change colour. Ask a grown-up to cut the stalk across, and you’ll see coloured dots: the tiny tubes that carry water up the plant.
Sunflower growth chart
Measure a sunflower every Saturday from June to August and graph it. Some weeks it may grow 30 cm or more. Compare growth to the weather that week. Did hot weeks mean faster growth?
Be a garden scientist. Real scientists change just one thing at a time.
Wonder: Does a bean grow faster in the sun or in the shade?
Try this: Plant beans in two identical pots with the same soil. Put one in a sunny window and one in a dim corner. Give them the same water. Measure both every two days and write it down. Which grew taller? Which looks healthier? (They might not be the same answer.)
Places to visit and learn
Lethbridge Research and Development Centre
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s research centre on the east side of the city, founded in 1906, is one of the largest in the federal research network. Scientists here study crops, soils, insects, cattle and water. It’s a working research site, not an attraction, but it has held public open houses (one in July 2024 had lab tours, talks by scientists and kids’ activities). Watch the local news for the next one.
Galt Museum & Archives
Lethbridge’s public museum tells the story of the region and its people, from the Blackfoot (Niitsitapi) to coal mining, the railway and the farm settlement that followed. Its collections include many photos of the region’s early sugar beet industry.
Helen Schuler Nature Centre
The City of Lethbridge’s nature centre in the river valley is a good place to see native prairie and river-bottom plants, the land as it was before irrigation, and the birds and insects that live with them.
Fairs and harvest festivals
Community events like Taber’s summer corn festival celebrate what grows here. Agricultural fairs often have 4-H displays where young people show the animals and crops they’ve raised themselves.
Sources
- Government of Alberta, Alberta Irrigation Information 2023 (irrigation districts, irrigated area, crop areas, water sources).
- Statistics Canada, 2016 Census of Agriculture (irrigated area by province).
- Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, “Statistical overview of the Canadian honey and bee industry, 2024.”
- Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lethbridge Research and Development Centre (centre profile).
- Bridge City News, “Research Centre throws open doors to the public” (July 18, 2024).
- Lethbridge News Now, “Taber area feeding Canada’s sweet tooth” (August 2017).
- Top Crop Manager, “Leafcutter bees essential to western Canadian canola.”
- Statistics Canada, 2016 Census of Agriculture, cattle and calves by census subdivision (Table 32-10-0424-01), Lethbridge County.
- MyHealth.Alberta.ca (Alberta Health Services), “Poison and drugs: plants” (PADIS number).
- Galt Museum & Archives, online collections (sugar beet industry photographs).
- Environment and Climate Change Canada, Canadian Climate Normals 1991–2020, Lethbridge Airport (precipitation).
More for curious kids
Visit the Kids’ Science Corner for trusted weather, space, nature and radio learning sites by age, and Family Adventures for low-cost outings around Lethbridge.