How to Earn the Girl Scout Junior Gardener Badge (Get Moving!)

*This post contains affiliate links.

Updated April 2023

There is nothing as relaxing as walking through a beautiful garden or sitting down on a chair and relaxing as you sip a cold drink and admire the beauty around you. Gardening is a wonderful hobby and it can not only beautify your surroundings, but also relieve your stress levels. Getting down and dirty with your hands in the soil and planting in the fresh air…time seems to fly by.

The Junior Girl Scout Gardening badge is one that the girls can do to help beautify an area that is important to them. If you meet at a school or a house of worship, you can ask them if they will let you plant a garden. When my troop was younger, the school actually had a Gardening Club, and that would have been perfect if this badge was available when they were Juniors. 

Photo created on Canva

You will also want to collect seed catalogues for Step 2.

A field trip to a nursery can also help you complete most, if not all, of the requirements for this badge.

Step 1 Visit a Garden

If the place where you meet has a garden or pretty landscaping, take a tour and have the girls observe how the flowers are planted and spaces, how color is used, and how height is factored in.

Step 2 Explore Garden Design and Step 3 Learn How to Choose Garden Plants

After a place has been selected to garden, then have the girls create their visions. Give them pencil and paper to plan, and look in the catalogue for what will grow in your area. Tropical plants will not do well in the Northwest and plants that need shade will not do well in an open field that gets direct sunlight all day long.

Then they can cut out pictures and paste them in the appropriate spots. 

Step 4 Experiment With Seeds

For this step, you will need:

Egg Cartons

Potting Soil

Seeds

Garden Trowels

Newspaper

Cup for water

Pencil for poking holes

Set of Kids Gardening Trowels Available on Amazon

Lay out the newspaper so clean up is easy. Follow the guidelines in the Junior Girl Scout Guide Book to complete this step. You can also find many kinds of seed planting charts for kids online.

Image created on Canva

Step 5 Grow Your Own Garden

The easiest way to complete this step is to plant a garden for someone or some organization. It is a great way to get outdoors with your troop!