Witness a seven-year-old gathering wild flowers or a preschooler intently probing the vegetable bed for worms, and you can see the special relationship kids have with gardens. Here just may be the most kid-friendly environment on earth--a place where dirt and water aren't off-limits, where surprises lurk beneath every leaf, and where all you need to succeed is a seed, some soil and a smattering of sun.

But that doesn't mean you can hand your four-year-old a hoe and expect him to gleefully weed the flower border. What kids like most about gardening isn't the quotidian stuff--the watering, fertilizing, and all those other chores that demand regular attention--but the garden is magic: how you can stick a tiny seed in the ground and end up with a vine full of tomatoes or a 10-foot sunflower.

Of course, gardening isn't about academics. It's about harvests and honeybees and dirt under your fingernails--fun, in other words. But if all goes well, at the end of the season, garden-wise kids come away with more than a fistful of radishes or a bucket of black-eyed Susans. They emerge with a hands-on knowledge of how the earth works, plus a new sense of mastery, a Hey, I did this myself attitude that lasts long after the final morning glory has winked its autumn farewell.

Garden writer Leslie Garisto Pfaff is a frequent contributor to FAMILYFUN.She lives in Nutley, New Jersey.