A family plays a printed garden dice game at a table in an autumn vegetable garden

Grandma's Garden & Jars: a Printable Dice Game for Families and Grandparents

It is a quiet autumn evening. Grandma has just lined up the last jars of pepper relish on the shelf, the children are still buzzing from the day, and nobody wants to look at a screen. Someone puts two dice on the table, everyone gets a sheet with an empty garden and a pencil – and ten seconds later comes the first question of the evening: “Tomato in row 5, or cabbage in row 3?”

Grandma's Garden & Jars is a printable dice game of the roll & write kind: you print it at home and play it with two ordinary dice and a pencil. It takes about 20 minutes, works for 1 to 6 players from age 7, and everyone plays at the same time, so nobody waits for their turn.

The world of the game

Behind Grandma's house there is a garden with six kinds of vegetables: strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, cabbages and pumpkins. Everything that ripens goes into jars for winter. Your garden sheet has a 6 by 6 grid, a small legend that shows which die number is which vegetable, three season tracks and Grandma's shelf, where you draw your jars.

How a turn works

  1. One player rolls 2 dice for everyone.
  2. You choose which die is the row and which is the vegetable (1 strawberry, 2 cucumber, 3 tomato, 4 pepper, 5 cabbage, 6 pumpkin).
  3. Draw that vegetable in an empty square of that row – or in any empty square next to a vegetable of the same kind.
  4. On a double, every player also draws a snail in an empty square of their choice. Nothing can be planted in that square for the rest of the game.
  5. Tick 1 box on the season track. After 8 rolls the season ends with a harvest.

From above: a child draws a fourth tomato next to three others on a printed garden sheet, two dice show 3 and 5

Example: the dice show 3 and 5. You can draw a tomato (3) in row 5 or a cabbage (5) in row 3. You already have three tomatoes side by side in row 2, so you choose the tomato and draw it right next to them – that is allowed, because it is right next to a tomato. Your tomato bed now has 4 squares.

Harvest: why neighbours matter

Matching vegetables that touch side by side form a bed. At the end of every season, ripe beds of 2 or more squares are harvested: you circle the bed and get 1 jar for every square. A lone plant gives nothing yet – but it can still grow into a bed later.

Strawberries are ripe from spring, cucumbers and tomatoes from summer, and peppers, cabbages and pumpkins only in autumn. This is the heart of the game: plant strawberries, cucumbers and tomatoes for early jars, or save space for big pumpkin and cabbage beds that only ripen at the last harvest? On the shelf, every jar is 1 point, a full shelf row of 6 jars gives +4, and a jar in all 6 shelf rows gives +6. In winter, the player with the most points wins.

A hand circles a bed of tomatoes and draws jars on the shelf of a printed garden sheet

Grandma's helpers (full edition)

In the full edition every player gets one helper card with a special power. Grandpa the Carpenter builds a stronger shelf, Lily the Granddaughter plants one more vegetable, Sharo the Dog lets you plant the vegetables of both dice, Auntie Dora brings seedlings, Mimi the Cat chases away a snail in spring and the Bees help your biggest bed. Most helpers work once per game, so the question is always: now, or later?

For experienced players there is also the Master shelf with 3 recipes from Grandma's kitchen – lyutenitsa (pepper relish), winter pickles and a Sunday table – and a solo ladder from “Little seed” to “Grandma is proud!”.

Two players with garden sheets laugh while one taps her helper card with a painted dog

Who it is for

  • Families with children aged 7 and up – the numbers are small and every choice is easy to explain.
  • Grandparents and grandchildren: a calm game that is easy to learn and still has real decisions.
  • Solo players who like to beat their own score.
  • Families abroad: the game comes in English, Bulgarian, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Polish.

A grandmother helps a boy count squares on his garden sheet while his mother smiles

Free edition or full edition?

The free edition contains the garden sheet (A4 and US Letter) and an 8-page rulebook with “The game in 1 minute” and an example turn. It is a complete game – print it and play tonight.

The full edition (€3.90) adds the Master shelf sheet with 3 recipes, 9 cards (6 helpers and 3 help cards), 2 fold-up dice, the 10-page rulebook with a full example game, ink-saver sheets and card backs, and a print-shop card file with 3 mm bleed.

Download the free edition Get the full edition

What you need

A printer, plain paper for the garden sheets, 2 dice and a pencil for every player. For the cards and the fold-up dice of the full edition, thick card (250–300 gsm), scissors and glue. Tip: put a sheet in a clear plastic sleeve and use a whiteboard marker – then you can play again and again.

All the rules, with worked examples and answers to common questions, are on the How to play Grandma's Garden & Jars page. New to dice-and-pencil games? Read why families love roll and write games. And if you would like another dice game, Star on Top is a Christmas dice game for 1–6 players from age 6 – with a free edition too.

Roll the dice, plant your garden and fill Grandma's shelf before the first snow.

Photos: AI-generated scenes. The files are for your own household and, if you are a teacher or lead a club or group, also for your own class, club or group. Not suitable for children under 3: small parts.

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