Over the years we grew many unusual things to amuse our son. Among them:

--Beans grown on a TeePee large enough that he could crawl inside and play inside the TP. We used scarlet runner beans, purple hyacinth beans, small gourds, morning glories and moonflowers all on the same TeePee.

--A Sunflower house. We planted a double row of extremely large sunflowers in an 8' x 8' block. Once the sunflowers were about 3 feet tall, we planted morning glories at the base of each flower stalk. Once the sunflowers were about 6 or 7' tall, we ran string back and forth to form a 'roof' and trained the morning glories, which had climbed the sunflowers, to grow across those strings, forming a roof to the sunflower house. I called it the sunflower house. DH and DS preferred to think of it as the sunflower fort. Either way, it was pretty cool.

--Moonflowers are great if your kids can stand waiting for the latter half of the summer for them to bloom. The flowers put on quite a show opening up each evening. Night-blooming cereus is interesting to grow for the same reason.

--Small, kid-sized watermelons. We grow these every year for a young friend of ours who is now 10 years old. I think he started coming over to pick them when he was 5. He loves having a watermelon that is his size, one that he can harvest and carry around.

--Pumpkins and gourds, especially birdhouse gourds. If you are able to grow these successfully, you and the kids can make birdhouses from them in the winter time after they have dried and cured.

--Vegetables that are the 'wrong color' like purple bush beans (although they do turn green when cooked), or jade blue corn (light green kernels that eventually turn deep blue), or ruby red sweet corn, or Purple Dragon carrots or Yellowstone carrots.

--Kohlrabi, especially the purple one, looks like a space alien type of plant.

--Catnip, if you have a cat. Young children are terribly amused at how crazy the cats act around the catnip. With some cats, catmint has the same effect.

--Herbs, like some of the mints, that you can brew tea from, or add to iced tea or lemonade....but only if you are sure it WON'T give your kids the idea that they can eat any plant leaves they want.

--Plants with REALLY HUGE flowers like some of the hardy hibiscus like Texas Red Star Hibiscus, or Lord Baltimore or Lady Baltimore, or the plain old everyday swamp mallow.

--Plants with black flowers, like the 'Nigra' hollyhock.

--Plants with night-blooming, highly scented flowers that attract moths like the hummingbird moth. These include the common white datura, moonflowers, nicotianas and four o-clocks.

--Plants that attract butterflies like zinnias, butterfly weed and verbena bonariensis (tall verbena). If you grow parsley as an edging around your butterfly flowers, the swallowtails will lay eggs on the parsley and you and the kids can watch the caterpillars eat and grow.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. If I think of more, I'll add them later.

Dawn

My granddaughter, Kenna, who is 5 years old, has been helping me butterfly garden for 2 years now. She helps me gather the caterpillars, food, and helps me clean the containers. She spots caterpillars that I miss! She is little miss eagle eye now. We enjoy doing this together. I got her a bug cage for Xmas, and she has already been putting pill bugs in it.

So, we are always planning something for more caterpillars.

Susan

Thanks Dawn for all the great ideas. The Teepee sounds like something my son and daughter would just love! They are always making "tents" out of blankets.

Mark

I saw that idea on Rebecca's Garden a long time ago. She has some great ideas for kids' projects and gardening. Check out her website if you would like, by just googling "Rebecca's Garden".

I thought of another fun veggie - round, red eggplant. I bought some seeds last year, but never got around to planting them.

Put out a dish of rotting fruit, like bananas and watermelon, and you'll attract a lot of butterflies to the dish who love to nectar on it rather than flowers.

Just beware that some plants are poisonous to children who might put their fingers in their mouth. I don't know how old your kids are, but it's always good to remind them anyway if plants are toxic. Kenna has gotten to the point where she knows milkweed is poison and always goes to the sink to wash her hands when she is finished picking leaves for the caterpillars.

You can always buy bugs, too, for the garden. Most kids love bugs, like ladybugs, praying mantids, and lacewings.

Susan