Want to encourage my son to garden, I think it’d be therapeutic for him since he’s very autistic and living across the country from me it’d kinda give us a way to connect through shared interest. Space is limited so I’m thinking of getting him a 2x2 or 2x4 tent and enough lighting. What would be the easiest thing for him in a small space like that?
Peppers are not an option, he inherited his mom’s midwestern palate so no spicy
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When I was in junior high school, I took a gardening class. We grew radishes because they are so quick to mature, one semester. Some varieties deliver more flavor than heat. You might try a few of them along with some slower to mature vegies. It was a really gratifying experience for me. I always encourage kids to grow things.
I was a live in domestic for about a year when I was maybe 20. I had a tiny garden, and one of the things I grew was carrots. Part of my job was to care for my employer’s 10 year old son, Tommy. Great kid! One day, Tommy and a friend were passing as I was weeding. The friend asked what was I doing? I explained that I was growing some vegetables in my little garden. He pointed to the carrots (they were closest to him) and asks what’s that? Carrots, I respond. His reply was priceless - “No those ain’t! Those ain’t carrots! Carrots come from the store, not from dirt!” It was difficult not to laugh! 
In any event, I think gardening could be a great way to bond!
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I would vote lettuce.
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Snap peas are a good one, kids love those sweet peas. Easy to grow too.
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something aromatic like lavender, thyme, rosemary. or something colorful like marigold.
all easy.
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Peppers are really a ton of fun to grow. I grow them in a 3x3 with a small led. It’s great for them. Also I use a humidity generator pumped into the tent. Many non hot peppers would be a great option!!! They are hard to kill once you get them established, plus you can keep em under 24 and still fruit when mature.
Pawsfodocaws
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I have been looking at this recently to grow around my area. It really depends on what you and your kid like. I have been looking at alpine strawberries to fill the darker areas as they are small, small radishes and spinach for quick growth. Daikon radish for a grow competition would be fun but it takes a while to grow. Herbs and micro greens are great because you can grow a lot in a small area using shelfs.
When you venture into fruiting plants i would honestly just go for whats tasty or interesting - even crabapples for jelly making but they can take ages to get to fruiting. Theres non productive plants such as cactus, orchids, aloe or flowers that can be tricky but fun and useful.
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i would also say something like @Foreigner suggested. lettuce, basil, spinach. any leafy green that can be picked daily and take very short time to be able to harvest the first leaves. good luck!
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Grow some tomatoes.
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Basil,very Easy,forgiving and takes Little to no room.If you want to go more advanced Tomatoes Is a good plant to learn more about fertilizing,pH values and the different phases of a fruiting plant
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Kale lettuce herbs tomato’s are all pretty easy and fun 
even some pretty flowers might be a fun experiment
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@EugeneDebs420 hey buddy. How old is your son? My vote would be on Leafy greens, tomatoes, bush beans, green peppers, maybe some flowers like nasturtium. Stuff to just get your hands dirty, is easy to grow, and are edible is a plus.
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Most interesting is diversity, a bit of everything.
Non-spicy bell peppers are easy, can turn them into bonsai.
Basil!
Also a perennial, and you can prune it like a tree as well, after a while the stem goes brown and hard.
I have two date palms growing too now, you can grow all kinds of tropical stuff.
Can’t really fuck this up, and it’ll show the cycle of life very clearly, how it really happens naturally;
You can grow a mix of fruit trees like that too, just keep pruning heavily, and keep mulching.
I throw apple cores, orange seeds, and grape seeds in there too.
Eventually something sprouts!
Whenever you want more things to sprout you simply water from the top for a couple of days, but avoid watering the outer layer with the mulch, keep the top layer of the outer ring dry, then it smells like a forest.
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Bush tomatoes, greens, herbs, radishes…you can do potatoes in bins or Contractor bags with very little soil and lots of straw…and fun to harvest!
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I really like the idea of aromatic herbs. I even got those to grow.
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Yes!!!
Imagine, in the same pot as a grape vine, with bean plants spiraling along the stem.
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If you use a bin/ tote…you can do bush tomatoes, pole beans and squash all in 1 bin! For potatoes, use a plastic trash can with bunch of 2"holes drilled in it. Put a layer of gravel in the bottom, then 3" of soil. Put seed potatoes on the soil and cover with just enough to bury them. As the plants grow, mulch with chopped straw so just the tips of the shoots show. Keep it damp…not wet. Keep adding straw till the shoots are 3" from the top of the can. The plants will grow out the holes and the top…when the vi es start to die, crush them down and wait a week. Then dump it all onto a tarp to harvest your taters! Use low nitrogen ferts at a low rate, or they get scabby.
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He’s 9, closer to 10 really
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Sweet! Fourth or fifth grade. Maybe hook him up with an Earthbox, City Picker, or some other type of SIP. Will take traditional top-watering out of the equation. I see a lot of schools using SIPs to teach kids about farming because they set them up for success. Good luck! Sounds like a fun project!
Everbearing or day-neutral strawberries might be a really good option. He’d have the odd berry ready to eat very often if he filled the tent. Like maybe almost daily. And you dont have to start over after harvest all the time. Indoors or out, so if he really likes it he could put some outside too. Its a huge feature imo. They are pretty hardy too once they get going. Plus they taste so darn good with no further effort than picking it and eating it. Also rooting shoots to make clones couldn’t be easier.
Buying plants in the spring from whatever store would be easiest. BUT, if he has someone to help him germinate seeds and baby tiny plants along, it might be even more fun to order weird colored ones online. I dont think the colored ones are usually everbearing tho. The seeds are super small and often need stratification(freezing) to sprout. Also plants are quite delicate until they get a little size. I have zero experience with autism, or him as an individual, so I say that in case failure would be overly upsetting for him. If it would, I’d get plants over seeds for sure.
Most plants are june bearing, but then theres everbearing and day neutral types too. So ya got to be careful to get the right ones. June berries are good for large production because you get all the berries in a short span of time, and they are bigger, so its easier for them to harvest/sell. Everbearing have a wave in the spring, and another later in the season, with odd ones inbetween. I have these and will have seeds next season. I crossed an everbearing with a wild Fragaria virginiana (one of the 2 original strawberries used to make modern berries) and F2ed it. Weeded out all non everbearing plants last year. Next year I’m pulling all with small berries, or less tasty ones, in the spring. Then I’ll take seeds from whoever is left in the fall from the 2nd wave of berries for F3s. Then there is day-neutral berries which I haven’t grown and know just a little about. I think they have even smaller berries, but are even more consistent about constant production. I’m pretty sure I read that they tend to plant those fresh every year. Not sure why. They are pretty new still I think.
Now that I wrote all that out, and am thinking about it, I’m not sure what light schedule you would want, or how they’d go indoors. I had F1 plants inside and they made berries under 24h on my weed mom shelf. But those where half everbearing, half wild, so I can’t promise what happens with regular everbearing inside. But I really doubt light schedule would matter to much, and I’m sure greenhouse people have the info out there on the web to be found someplace. Maybe having both everbearing and day neutral in there would be the ticket 
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