A Garden Journal App for Kids That Gets Them Outside

Brian Eden

Somewhere right now, a kid is watering a pretend carrot. They tap the screen, the carrot grows, coins fall out of the sky, and a greenhouse unlocks. They're very good at it.

Thirty feet away, past a window they haven't looked out of, there is an actual carrot.

Looking straight down at a child's gray sneakers with pink toes standing in grass and fallen winged seeds, a pink heart-print dress in the foreground and a small hand holding up a freshly pulled, dirt-speckled carrot with its green top
Photo by mrchrisby on Unsplash, edited.

The short version: The best garden app for a kid is one that sends them back outside. Percy is a garden journal they can just talk to: they say what they notice and photograph what they find, and it remembers it all with the date, so the season becomes a record in their own words. Percy accounts are for grown-ups; kids use it on your phone, with you nearby.

I don't blame the game. It does its job, and its job is to keep a kid looking at the game. But a real garden has advantages no developer can ship in an update. Carrots come up forked like a tiny pair of pants. Worms are longer than anyone expected. The dirt is real dirt, it ends up under the fingernails, and everyone survives.

A game can hand a kid a carrot. A garden makes them wait for one, which is the better lesson. A seed they plant in April becomes a tomato in July, and to a seven-year-old that is roughly a geological age. They learn that some things can't be rushed, and that a vegetable they grew themselves deserves a serious look before they refuse to eat it.

They also learn to look closely. Kids already do this better than adults, who mostly stopped looking at anything that isn't a screen. A garden rewards the habit daily, because something is always different. A bean that was a flower on Tuesday shows up on Friday, and a hole appears where there wasn't one.

So if you're shopping for a gardening app for kids, my suggestion is a little backwards. Pick the one that points them at the real garden.

How kids can use Percy as a garden journal

Percy is the garden journal that remembers, and you just talk to it. A kid holds a button and says what they see. They don't have to type or spell, which helps when your gardener is five and still negotiating with the letter S. They say, "The pumpkin is orange on one side." Percy plays it back, they tap to confirm (or fix it if Percy heard "porcupine"), and the sentence goes into the Nest, where the season's observations assemble into a record. It takes about ten seconds, and they can do it standing right next to the pumpkin.

Percy's confirmation card for 'The echinacea are crushing it right now' with a photo of pink coneflowers and a note to leave the seed heads for goldfinches
Say it, see it played back, tap to confirm.

Who came to visit

Kids notice the visitors first. A bee lands on the zinnia and gets reported. A caterpillar shows up in a color that looks like a manufacturing error and gets reported too. Toads and birds follow (and once, at our house, a baby deer in the hydrangeas), and each one goes into the journal with a date, which is the part adults never get around to. By August they will have told Percy more about the garden than you have, and they'll remember the order things happened in better than you do. By the end of the season, it's a keepsake of the garden in their own words.

Percy identifying a swallowtail caterpillar on parsley: could be anise or eastern black swallowtail, either way this one's a friend Percy continuing: it will munch the parsley, relocate it to Queen Anne's lace or fennel if needed, but if you can spare it, you're raising a butterfly
A visitor, reported. Spare it, and you're raising a butterfly.

What's that?

Every garden with a child in it produces the question "what's that?" about forty times an afternoon, and the honest adult answer is "a weed? Maybe a flower?" Percy can look at a photo of a plant and tell you what it is. They take the picture, get a name, and the name goes into the garden journal instead of evaporating by dinner. When they ask next spring about the purple thing, the answer will already be written down.

A name isn't permission to touch or taste, though. Unknown berries and mushrooms stay a grown-up question.

Percy identifying a native aster and noticing a bee working the center of the flower
The purple thing, named. Next spring, it's already written down.

A few things that help

Let them hold the phone for the garden walk, since it's their job for ten minutes. Ask one question, "What's different today?", rather than three, because three is a quiz. And if they say the squash looks angry, let Percy write down angry. You can add the powdery mildew later.

When they announce that next year they're growing a watermelon the size of a dog, Someday (Percy's shelf for maybe-next-year ideas) is where that goes. It'll be there in March, and so will they.

Percy's Someday mood board in the Twigs tab: saved photos of a garden path, a restaurant covered in flower boxes, sunflowers in Vermont, zinnias, and a note to try watermelon next season
Someday, where next year's watermelon waits.

Ask what's different today. They'll tell you.

The tablet garden will still be there when it rains.

Frequently asked questions

How do I get my kids interested in gardening? Give them a job that's about noticing, not chores. Hand them the phone for a ten-minute garden walk, ask "What's different today?", and let them report what they find. Kids already notice more than adults; they just need somewhere to put it.

Is there a garden journal app for kids? Percy works well as one, even though it wasn't built just for kids. They don't have to type or spell: they say what they see, and Percy keeps it with the date. For more options, here are the best gardening apps for kids.

Can kids use Percy? Yes, with you. Percy accounts are for grown-ups, and kids use it on your phone, with you nearby.