Thinking about putting together a small raised bed garden (like 4x4) and having the kids grow stuff. Seems like a good weekend activity but also seems like it could turn into me maintaining a garden while the kids lose interest after week 2. For the parents who've done this - is it actually worth the effort or am I overthinking it? What kept your kids engaged?
Do it. The actual building part takes maybe an afternoon and the ROI on getting kids interested in where food comes from is worth way more than the effort. Start with easy stuff like lettuce or herbs though, not tomatoes.
Grabbed a 4x4 kit from Home Depot for like $80 and it's been the best weekend activity we've done. Kids check on it every day and we actually eat what comes out of it. No regrets.
If your kids are young this is great, but fair warning the weeding part sucks and the kids definitely won't help with that. Also deer got into mine last summer and destroyed everything overnight.
The raised bed itself is easy, just make sure you get decent soil and don't cheap out on that part. I made that mistake and spent more money fixing it than I would have spent getting good dirt from the start.
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We built one two years ago and honestly the kids lost interest after like 3 weeks. Now I'm just maintaining a 4x4 bed by myself. That said if you pick something they actually like eating it helps. Our daughter got really into cherry tomatoes for some reason.