As well as being educational, it can be fun, it saves money and is environmentally friendly.

And, if you’re lucky, it might encourage fussy eaters to try their greens too.

In these tough economic times, growing your own is increasing in popularity, with a recent poll finding that 26 per cent more people are growing fruit and vegetables, while retailer B&Q reported a 27 per cent rise in the sale of vegetable seeds.

But if you don’t know your celeriac from your courgettes, there’s plenty of horticultural help available.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) runs the Campaign for School Gardening, which has encouraged 200 schools to establish gardening clubs, as well as the new Get Your Grown-ups Growing Day, an annual event which gets kids to persuade parents to pull on their gardening gloves and get stuck in.

Dean Peckett, garden manager at the RHS Harlow Carr Gardens in Harrogate, was involved with last month’s launch of Get Your Grown-Ups Growing.

He stresses that gardening and growing your own is vital for parents to help kids appreciate where their food comes from.

“I visit a lot of schools, and when you ask pupils where carrots come from, they inevitably say Asda, Sainsbury’s or another supermarket,” he says.

“We’re very keen for children to start to learn again about where food comes from.”

He believes gardening is a great way of engaging both children and parents in an activity that’s good for them. People without their own gardens can grow things in window boxes, or find a relative or friend that’s got a garden and use that.

“The garden is a great place to engage with a child - the freedom is so appealing to them,”

Peckett says.

“You’re together in the fresh air, you’re working in nature and potentially growing food that you can all enjoy together.

“It’s about having some fun, enjoying the outdoors and playing as well.”

Environmental volunteering charity BTCV is also working with families across the UK to encourage food growing and pass on gardening skills.

It co-ordinates Green Gyms to inspire people to improve both their health and the environment.

BTCV has also just launched the Carbon Army, which will carry out 3,000 days of environmental action, including food growing events, to help draw attention to the damage that climate change is causing to the world’s food crops.

Mick Denness, BTCV’s head of sustainable communities, says the charity has recently seen a huge increase in food growing and community gardening projects.

“One of the most exciting things I’ve seen around the country has been the increasing number of families who are now growing their own,” he says.

“Food growing and community gardening projects enable families to make friends, become fitter through doing the work, appreciate that food doesn’t just come from supermarket shelves, and show how families can benefit from being in the natural environment.”

Teaching assistant Helen Martin has seen the benefits children get from gardening on both a personal and professional level.

Helen started a gardening club at All Saint’s School in Leeds, where she works and where her two sons were pupils, because she wanted the children to learn about nature and nurture.

The club proved so popular that she expanded it to become a BTCV Green Gym, and she now runs weekly environment sessions at the school.

With the help of parents, grandparents and children, the Green Gym has grown vegetables, cleared a pond, planted spring bulbs and flowers and greatly improved the school grounds.

“We planted carrots from seed, and when they’d grown we harvested them and the school chef cooked them,” Helen says.

“The children’s faces lit up. Until then a lot of the kids thought that carrots came from Morrisons.”

The group is now hoping to build a polytunnel so the children can garden all-year-round.

The Green Gym has also had a great effect on Helen’s children, particularly her youngest son Alexander, 12, who suffers from Asberger’s syndrome.

“It’s certainly made a huge difference to my family, and to how my children understand and enjoy food,” she says.

For information about Green Gyms or the Carbon Army, visit www.btcv.org.uk