Digging, in the garden, in a sandpit, planting vegetables

Digging. Given half a chance your nearest and dearest will joyfully dig up all your lovely plants, and even your grass. As with most things, the best course of action is not to tell them NO! but to give them their own space to dig, or even better let them help you. If you have a small garden that you could not fit a swing in, or is too small for a bicycle, then a sandpit is one thing kids can do with minimal supervision.
	Sand pit you can buy the commercial plastic trays, or make your own.If you are making a slide you can put a tray underneath the platform. Whatever you do, some sort of cover is a good idea to stop animals using it as a toilet. Resign yourself to the fact that the sand will get thrown out, If you put the sandpit on the lawn move it around so that the grass doesn't die off. If you are going to have to move your sandpit, get a small one, wet sand is heavy
When you buy sand , but washed or silver sand. Ordinary builders sand, whilst cheaper will stain clothes and can cause scabies. Younger children will also eat quite a lot of sand, so don't worry about loosing some, its best to replace it regularly, and especially over winter you may find your sandpit full of green slime. Chuck the sand away (spread it on the lawn) and get some new next season.Builders merchants will quite often sell playpit sand in 50Kg bags, this is a lot cheaper than buying it from a toy shop. When your kids are young don't expect them to make sandcastles unaided, they just are not strong enough. They will want to dig the sand out and put it somewhere else. There are some great plastic toys for this
	I have found that, given a choice, a lot of younger kids would rather play with gravel, perhaps its the noise it makes, or its easier to dig. Pea gravel is or ornamental colored whippings are quite cheap. Get aplastic tray (like the ones used for mixing concrete on )and you can use your gravel pit inside and out
If you have a corner of garden let your kids plant something. They can then see when it is OK to dig, and they love watering the plants. They can see where food comes from, and you may even get them to eat some veg if they have grown it. Don't worry if you are not a gardener, here are some plants you can just lob in the ground and forget about.		Things I have found work well are Potatoes (easy to dig, fun to dig for the 'treasure' counting practice) Runner beans - big seeds, grows huge plant, beans easy to pick Strawberries, get the little wild berries, they pick very easily, are really tasty and strawberry plants grow like weeds and need no care