Your post comes across as an information grab for some blog, article, or scheme. So, what is your true intent for asking such questions?

Rodney

Hello! I am in a college course where we are gathering information as part of a class project! Did not mean to make the post sound disingenuous.

I've always gardened and grown vegetables. As for cooking, it's not a hobby, it's how we feed ourselves. I didn't do it to 'engage' the kids. It was no more deliberate 'education' or 'sustainable hobby' that doing the washing or make the beds. I made no effort to make them to do these things. Now they cook and garden for themselves but not because I intentionally 'educated them' to do so.

I learned to garden and to love fresh grown veggies as a small child. I'm not sure that I have ever not had a garden, even as a college student years ago.

No children of my own but at present there are two little girls who live next door who have become very proficient gardeners, willing to weed, get their knees and hands dirty. They have also learned how and when to harvest the vegetables or cut the flowers.

They are also enthusiastic eaters of all kinds of fruits and vegetables.

The biggest factors in getting kids involved are the time, enthusiasm, and example of the adults in their lives.

While I started gardening when the kids were older, they still went out into the garden with me and had many snacks in the garden, which broadened their love of fresh veges. Carrots, cherry tomatoes, green beans, radish and asparagus rinsed and consumed in the garden.

When kids are part of the process, they are more likely to enjoy the final product.

I was fortunate to have several garden boxes where I worked at a school. Some of my Special Ed students just thought veges came from the store! Once we started growing them, they were all eager to take some home!

I guess a good question is what exactly you want to teach, and it depends on the age. For the youngest kids, you're teaching mostly patience. Just picking produce is instructive. Older kids will benefit from understanding where food comes from and the organized effort that goes into making it happen. Not sure what you mean by a "sustainable hobby". You mean a hobby that carries with it sustained responsibilities? As in, one that you can't walk away from? Or one that's always there when you want it to be? Or maybe were talking eco-pragmatism? You're talking about family projects rather than school projects, I guess. What makes it desirable for kids is mainly the novelty. What can make it undesirable is the responsibility.