Posts Tagged ‘Gardening’

Tips for Gardening with Kids

Monday, March 9th, 2015

gardening-with-kids

Gardening with kids is a joy! The kids can see a plant growing up out of the soil into a large and beautiful plant. Getting fresh air and sunshine is good for children, and they are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables when they grow their own plants.

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First you will want to find a plot of ground for your child to plant his or her garden. There was a small square plot at the front of our house, and my son chose that space for a small tomato plant. If you look at the picture above, last year his plant grew to ten times the size in just three months! The tomatoes tasted wonderful. He wanted to sell them, but they were just too good. So into his mouth they popped.

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This year my son wanted to plant strawberry plants. I told him that a contained area is great for strawberry plants, which tend to take over the whole yard like a weed. The strawberry plants thrived as well.

Tips for Gardening with Kids

  • Make sure that the soil is rich in the area where your child is planting. You will want to dig out the bad soil and replace it with good gardening soil.
  • Don’t forget to water your plants. You might want to place a note on the refrigerator to remind your child to water the plants.
  • Let the child choose the plants. This way they will be more interested in the growth and produce of their plants.
  • Choose plants that are native to your area. You are more likely to succeed if the plants are indigenous to the area. You can find those in local nurseries rather than big chain stores that ship their plants from outside your state.

Have a wonderful time gardening with your kids!

Growing Indoor Grass

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

growing-indoor-grass

One activity that my young children enjoyed was growing indoor grass in a plastic cup. I saw the idea in lots of different places, including Family Fun Magazine. Even though we did this activity in the spring, it might be fun to grow the grass in the winter as a centerpiece for my dining room table, just to see some greenery at that time of year. If I grew it in a shallow container, I could make a scene, depending on what I added to the grass. Candles, plastic animals, army men… the list is endless as to the scenes you could create!

Older children could create scenes from different countries or habitats, or a battle from the Civil War. Or they could design a scene on the grass that would make someone feel like they were in a spa, with different levels of candles stabbed into the dirt.

If you want to make the fun grass heads in the picture above, start with some clear plastic cups. The children decorated these according to their personalities. I decided to hot glue their decorations onto the cup to make sure they didn’t fall off, but your kids could use white school glue. Each child shoveled soil into the cup, then sprinkled grass seed. They sprayed the seeds with a spray bottle of water. We placed the cups on a table next to a sunny window.

Grass grows fairly quickly, so we didn’t have to wait very long. Soon the grass was tall enough to decorate the “hair,” so to speak. We put hair clips into the grass heads, and they looked really silly. This is a perfect activity for young children.

My First Garden (at Boarding School)

Friday, May 21st, 2010

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My science teacher at boarding school was super cool. Besides having a live snake in his classroom, he gave each of us a plot of garden for our own, sectioned off by rope. During the first semester, we planted wheat. After it was ripe for harvest, we removed all the grains by hand, and we ground it and made flour. We baked bread out of it, and it was delicious, hot from the oven.

The second semester, we could plant whatever vegetables we wanted. That was when I grew to love the smell of the soil. (That is, before we were required to put old cow manure into it. It never smelled the same after that.) I made furrows the correct spacing apart, and I planted the seeds and covered them with soil. I ended up growing carrots, radishes, lettuce, cucumbers, beans, and peas.

Every day, I would run out to my garden, look at the progress of each tiny plant, and pull any weeds that were growing. When it was time to harvest the fastest-growing plants, we had a huge, absolutely enormous basket of radishes and carrots. The carrots were so sweet and huge, with beautiful green tops still attached. I felt like Bugs Bunny as I chomped away. I eventually got sick of burping radishes, and the rest of the radishes spoiled, even though we let everyone in our dorm eat as much as they wanted.

The harvest from the other vegetables was eaten by us little by little as it grew, so we never had any leftovers of those. I enjoyed opening the small gate and swinging it shut behind me. I would walk down the rows of plants, because I had left enough space to walk around each row. As I saw the vegetables growing, I would pluck them off like Peter Rabbit. What a clever way to get children to eat more vegetables!

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My Gardening Binder

Friday, May 14th, 2010

my-gardening-binder

I created a gardening binder with pictures, articles, and blueprints from my backyard. I’ve used this as a source of inspiration for years now.

When I moved into our first house 12 years ago, I saw an overgrown backyard with a lot of potential. I had never really been good at gardening (aside from my boarding school experience). So the entire backyard (and front yard!) loomed like a daunting task, waiting to be magnificent.

My first step was to sign up for an inexpensive gardening class, put on by the local community college. I took copious notes and asked lots of questions. The good thing about taking a local class was that the expert could tell me what grew well in my area.

gardening-binder-2I read some gardening magazines, ripping out any articles that were helpful “how to’s,” such as how to prune a bush correctly or when and how to plant bulbs. I punched three holes into the pages and put them into a binder. I made dividers: perennials, bulbs, herbs, lawn, trees and shrubs, exercises for gardeners, and general advice. I hole punched all my class notes and handouts from my gardening class and categorized them accordingly.

I also cut out pictures of inspiring gardens so that I had an idea of what I liked, and so that I would be excited to do all the work that needed to be done. I grabbed a black sheet of construction paper and glued some beautiful gardening pictures on the front. I slid this into the pocket on the outside cover of the binder. I wrote “Gardening” on a sheet of black paper and slid it down the binding pocket so that when the binder was on a shelf, I could spot it quickly.

In the back pgardening-binder-3ocket I put “before” and “after” pictures. I went outside and took pictures for the “before” side. I left the “after” side empty for years. Behind the “before” and “after” pictures, in that same back pocket, I put my garden blueprints. I bought a sheet of blueprint paper at the art supply store while taking a landscaping class (another local class). I had to measure my entire yard with a measuring tape, and then measure out where each tree and bush was. I found out that day that I had 23 pine trees in my small backyard in the suburbs. No wonder my soil was acidic!

Over the years I have improved my yard, but I’ve had more failure than success. Being on a tight budget, at first I refused to buy dirt. But my soil was so bad, I really needed to amend it or it would never look good. The thought of buying dirt seemed ludicrous to me, but that was one secret that helped my garden to begin to do well. When I had no money whatsoever for plants, I threw a garden party, where peopgardening-binder-4le brought plants from their yard to share, and swapped their plants for other people’s plants. That was how I began my perennial garden. If you go to people’s houses with fabulous yards, you can compliment them and start letting people know that your garden is pathetic. Sooner or later people will start giving you plants, especially women from church who have seen your real garden and feel sorry for you. Then again, I also told my husband to never buy me flowers unless they had a root attached. In these sneaky ways, I built my garden over time, with virtually no money.