The Backyard Bunch Tools for Budding Gardeners

By Christina VanGinkel

Getting kids involved in gardening and the chores that go along with it, can be a step towards a life long love of this very beneficial hobby. One way to accomplish this, is to make the act of doing the garden chores as fun as can be. When I came across the Insect Lore site through the Google link here at iGardeners.com, I was absolutely in love with The Backyard Bunch Tools for Budding Gardeners!
With hand cultivators, and hand shovels, along with garden hoes and garden shovels, all done up in bright colors and designs, I knew that any young child who was fortunate enough to be provided with a set of these, would be begging for time spent out in the garden.

All of the individual pieces, the cultivator, hand shovel, larger shovel, and the hoe, are each available in one of five fun designs:

Manny Mantis
Webster Spider
Flutter Butterfly
Buzzby Bee
Dot Ladybug

Manny Mantis is available in green, with each individual piece sporting his image a fun to own item. The shovel even seems to have a big smile on it, seemingly happy to be helping in the garden.

Webster Spider is black and red, and of the five designs, I would say his image is not quite as fun loving as the others are, and maybe because of the shape of his eyes, a little bit on the scary side even. An older child or one that loves spiders would find the images of Webster Spider pretty cool though and my two-year-old grandson told me he was not scary, just hard working!

Flutter Butterfly is done up in orange, and to me was the friendliest of the bunch. Maybe it was just the orange color, but the image of Flutter is fun, fun, fun!

The group is rounded out with Buzzby Bee in bright yellow and Dot Ladybug in pink. Both are fun designs, and Dot done up in pink, would surely delight any young girl who wants to take up gardening.

Not only are these all fun for your little ones to use out in the garden, they are all fully functional. The hoes and larger shovels are wood and metal construction with easy to grip rubberine handles. The hand cultivators and smaller hand sized shovels are made with easy to grip handles too, but have plastic ends for safety with even the youngest bunch.

If your kids really enjoy The Backyard Bunch gardening tools, you can also purchase the same fun to love characters on kneeling pads (great for keeping the knees of their pants clean), and gardening aprons that they can wear when they help cook up the bounty harvested from the garden they helped plant and care for. They also offer sun visors, which are perfect for keeping your little one's eyes protected from the harsh glare of the summer sun, and gloves that they will want to wear everywhere, not just in the garden. There is also a nozzle for attaching to the end of your garden's hose, available in each design for making watering a tad more fun. For those who like to water the old-fashioned way and for those hard to reach plants that the hose just cannot get at, there are watering cans made of galvanized metal so they are not only adorable in their own way, they are also made to last. The watering cans are sized at 5" x 5" x 7", so they will still be manageable for a young child to carry and use when filled with water. Each of the five characters is also available in a set that consists of the kneeling pad, a pair of gloves, hand shovel, and a hand cultivator. Each set is made up of one individual character, no mixing, and matching. If you have a child, who would rather mix it up amongst the five, then mix and match on your own to make up a set any child would love to own.

If you have been searching for a way to encourage your children to discover the fun side of gardening, The Backyard Bunch Tools for Budding Gardeners might be just the set you have been in search of.