How To Organise A Garden Safely When You Have Small Children

How to easily make your garden safe, organised and friendly for younger children so that you can all enjoy your little slice of nature without worry. 

If you have small children, then you know just how haphazard they can be. Everything becomes a potential weapon with which they can hurt themselves. That’s why, usually – the more organised you can be around the house, the better. 

A particularly potentially dangerous area for kids is the garden. It’s a place with a whole range of different tools and other items a child could use to do some serious damage to themselves. Whether that’s a simple garden trowel left by the flowerbed, or a pair of secateurs getting into the wrong tiny hands. There is an endless possibility of risks and safety concerns in the families little slice of nature. 

Fear not! Here are some ways to organise and child-proof your garden:

Bamboo Cane Protection

Bamboo stakes are commonly-found garden-staple which are a real risk to children. It would be far too easy for a young child to trip and fall onto one of these, and the consequences don’t bear thinking about.

Luckily this is a pretty easy one to solve, simply pop something over the ends of the canes to make them less pointy. Something as simple as an old plastic flower pot taped over the end of the cane could make all the difference!

Keep It Tidy!

For a lot of people, it’s easy to keep your garden organised – just chuck everything into the shed!

But for a lot of us, it’s not that simple. We don’t all have the room (or permission) for a shed. Thankfully, there are lots of alternatives to a shed that are a bit more manageable, affordable and much less permanent such as:

1. Storage boxes
   
   These are simple boxes that have removable or tilting lids and come in a range of different sizes, some being big enough to house bigger items such as lawnmowers, etc and many are even waterproof, protecting your stuff from the elements. Don’t forget you could even DIY and make one from scratch! You’ll also want to add locks to these boxes, particularly if they contain bug killers and other dangerous liquids and tools, so your children don’t have a rummage and grab something that could cause them harm. A separate storage box specifically for your child’s wellies, toys and other garden bits and bobs is ideal for them to use to learn how to keep themselves tidy. You can even help them decorate it themselves so they feel a sense of pride and ownership over it.
   
2. Cover it up!
   
   Things like barbecues, bikes, furniture, etc are all things that present a hazard. If you can’t store them away somewhere when not in use, you should think about covering them up.
   
   There are many affordable covers available on the market for the above things but you could also go down the DIY route and buy a tarpaulin to cover them.
   
   This small step could prevent little fingers being trapped, or skin being scratched against sharp parts.
   
3. Get rid!
   
   Let’s face it, we all have things we don’t need. Things we could sell, donate or just throw away. If you have things you don’t want to get rid of, there’s always the option of cheap self storage at Storing.com, this way you can keep those items long term until you need them, decide what to do with them or until you move somewhere with more room for them.

Add A Kid Friendly Zone

You no doubt have made it clear to your children where they aren’t allowed to go without supervision. Maybe they need to leave the veggie bed alone, or they aren’t to go behind the shed or bins where you can’t see them. 

What you can do, to balance this and make those out of area zones so tempting is add kid friendly zones. This isn’t just their toys and apparatus, but rather entire areas just for them. It could be a mud kitchen (which smaller kids love!), a Wendy house or even a ‘games area’. If they know they have a dedicated area that is special to them, they are hopefully less likely to be tempted to get themselves into trouble elsewhere.

Sort Out Trip Hazards Quickly

One of the best things about children is that they are in their own little world, but that also means they can forget to look where they are going. That means trip hazards like a wonky tile, or large pieces of brick laying around, can be a real problem. By organising any debris into a corner of the garden, and fixing any elements of the garden that are more permanent, you can avoid the kids having an accident through a trip or fall. 

Your outdoor space is precious, and with a few simple tweaks, you can make sure it’s safe for everybody to use. 

Hopefully, these tips will help you get your garden organised and maybe prevent a grazed knee or two.