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Gardening www.help4everyparent.com |
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Kids 'n Gardening Gardening is an activity everyone can enjoy whatever your age, where ever you live. Bev boorer has written these articles. She has lots of ideas to start children gardening. On this page you will find articles about:
Click on the headings on the right for more articles Why not make gardening into a family fun activity? Encourage your kids to help out, or give them their own little plot. Most kids love to play in the dirt. Give them a trowel and a square metre of earth to call their own and you will be surprised at what they accomplish. Keep pre-schoolers close to you so they don’t get into trouble. Dirt in the eyes and mouth is not good. What you choose to allow your children to do in the garden will depend partly on their age. Here are some ideas:
Plan your garden with the children in mind.
----------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- If your garden is large enough, your children might like to grow vegies for the table, or to sell for a bit of pocket money. The neighbours may be happy for the chance to buy freshly picked beans, corn or tomatoes. You could even offer to buy them yourself. Competitions are fun.
See whose flowers or vegetables grow first or fastest or bear the biggest
crop. A gardening journal to record their plans, sowing date and results
of their hard work will also keep them interested. They could have a
special tape measure to keep track of the height of those sunflowers. Get your kids away from the TV and into the real world. Let them have a go at container gardening. It is a great holiday project, and let them do their own thing right from the start. They can go with you to buy a large black plastic pot and some paint to brighten it up. Maybe they’ve collected shells from the beach that will look great glued to the outside of the pot. Thick string wound around the pot and glued is another idea for decoration. Not much room? Go for a smaller pot. Once decorated and planted it will look terrific on a sunny windowsill or patio. A foam box or an ice-cream container is just as good to decorate. The children can paint a different picture or pattern on each side. Buy the kids their own set of tiny tools and a small pair of gloves for when they are working with their container gardens. If you use potting mix in the container, gloves will be a safety precaution. Find a suitable plant –a hardy one that won’t die if watering is forgotten for a few days. Choose seeds that germinate very quickly if they want to go for seeds, but the younger child may not understand that the soil needs to be left undisturbed after planting seeds. Older children may enjoy growing something that they can eat, like cherry tomatoes. To make things more interesting while they wait for the fruit of their labours to flower or fruit, they can have a windmill or insect on a stake to poke into the soil. Or decorate the top of the soil with pebbles or small ornaments. If you don’t want your kids to dabble in dirt, use sand and let them create a fake garden with a fishpond made from a lid. They can make a pretend underwater scene with any tiny toys they might have. Kids love shiny pebbles and these can be bought quite cheaply at two-dollar stores. They can be glued to the outside of the pot or used to make a pathway through the world they’ve created. Discarded fish tanks, make lovely indoor gardens. Help your children choose miniature plants with attractive foliage. Add an edging of marbles or coloured pebbles, and make a fence by gluing discarded Popsicle sticks together. Provide the opportunity and you’ll soon see your child’s imagination and creativity blossom. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is a fun and easy project to teach children about seed germination. It can be done in the home or classroom. Ask the children to bring a clean, empty container to class. It can be something like a yoghurt or margarine container. They could also save a seed to bring. Suggestions are apple or orange seeds; rockmelon, watermelon or tomato seeds; pumpkin or cucumber seeds. Alternatively, the teacher could bring some, as well as potting or seed-raising mix. The children could have a show and tell session about their seed, then they could all plant them in the containers and place them on a tray. Depending on the age of the children, records could be kept to see how long each seed took to germinate and what the first two leaves looked like compared with the other leaves. Height (or length) and rate of growth could be noted and the children could even draw their plant at various stages of growth. Each child could be responsible for watering their own seed, or they could form groups for this job. To prevent over-watering, let them use a medicine measure or a spray bottle. If possible, find a spot in the school garden to transplant the seedlings into, or allow each child to take theirs home. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are looking for something a little more unusual in the gardening line to interest your kids, maybe they would like a bonsai tree, or a bonsai kit so they can grow their own. While children are often impatient for results, an older child may have the patience to become interested in bonsai growing, especially if they have grown out of the liking dirt stage. Just think, there is no weeding to be done with bonsai! Unless you know a bit about bonsai yourself, a small handbook or ebook on the subject would be useful to make sure the tree doesn’t die from the wrong kind of care. Bonsai trees are so attractive with their wonderfully twisted and gnarled trunks and tiny foliage, it would be a shame to lose it. Bonsai could be the very hobby for the child who is interested in growing things, but doesn’t want to spend a lot of time looking after a garden. For the beginner bonsai grower, you would also need basic tools such as concave pruners for cutting branches and bud scissors for dealing with leaves and more delicate parts of the plant, a pot especially for bonsai, the right kind of potting mix and of course the tree are other components of your bonsai kit gift. When choosing the tree, decide whether it will be for indoors or outside, as some trees are more suited to outdoors than others. Wire and wire cutters are also necessary for the bonsai kit. Get plenty of wire, as your child is sure to make a few mistakes and will need to cut it off and start again. You child might like to go with you to the nursery to choose and purchase the bonsai tree and pot. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One great way to help save the environment and have fun at the same time is to grow a donkey! No, not the four-footed variety, but a donkey orchid. These are Australian natives that almost became extinct in the wild; until scientists found out they needed a special kind of fungus to grow with them before they could survive. This fungus was fast disappearing due to pollution and disease, but those clever guys found out ways to grow it, saving 800 species of orchids in the process. In fact, each kind of ground orchid needed a different kind of fungus as a companion to help it grow, so there are 800 different types of fungus to match the 800 species of orchid! Some of the orchids are called cowslip, leopard cowslip, blue fairy and blue lady. Growing a native ground orchid is as easy as growing mushrooms. You can buy a special kit with the fungus and some seeds in it for about $9.95. Mail-order details can be had from (08) 9480 3600. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Getting Creative ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are at your wit’s end to know how to entertain your kids, why not let them get creative in the garden? Give them their own corner, or a special piece to call their own, then suggest that they use an old toy to decorate it with. A bike, dinky or pedal car will look fantastically rustic with plants twining through the wheel spokes or over the seat. Potted plants can be hung from the handlebars or sat on the seat. Ivy geraniums are hardy plants that will climb and twine beautifully. Even a rusted bicycle wheel propped up near a plant would make an unusual support for plant tendrils. If you have no garden, find an old pair of boots for them to stuff with potting mix and plant with any number of small plants. Cacti, succulents, or even annuals like pansies or petunias are all good. An old teapot or saucepans can be pressed into service as a pot for plants, though if there is no hole in the bottom, be sure to keep them out of the rain. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kids Going Nuts in the Garden For a change, why not get the kids interested in growing a tree in the garden? Nut trees are a bit unusual and would appeal to kids who love nuts, or just like something a little different. Almond trees are not hard to grow and the pretty blossom resembles that of the peach tree. The fruit also could be mistaken for a peach when it is small, as each almond is coated in a furry pod. This will split open when the time comes to pick the nuts. And just imagine what you - ahem, the children -will save by growing almonds. Almonds thrive in cool, wet winters and warm, dry summers, but they don’t like humidity. They don’t take up much room in the garden. If you’ve more room, hazelnuts are even easier to grow, not caring if the climate is cool or warm. The trees are somewhat untidy; they grow to seven metres tall and spread out quite a bit too, hence the need for room. You’ll also need two for pollinating purposes. If you like nuts but not trees, try growing peanuts. Unfortunately, unless you live in the tropics or can provide shelter from frosts, it’s a bit late to start one off now. You can buy raw unroasted peanuts from the health food shops suitable for growing. They have to be shelled carfully as if the nuts split, they will not germinate. They like well-drained, sandy soil. Sow the kernels about 50-100mm below the soil surface and water in well. If growing in a pot, cover the soil with a few sheets of newspaper and place in a sheltered spot. Do not water the peanuts again until they have sprouted about a week later. After that, be careful not to overwater, as peanuts dislike water close to their roots for long periods Kids would be intrigued with these ‘upside-down’ plants. Once the flower is pollinated, the stem turns upside down and grows underground, where the nuts are formed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Most kids like fruit, so why not suggest they grow their favourite fruit on a tree? They could experiment with growing a seed from a piece of fruit they just ate, or they could purchase one from the nursery. If they grow their tree from a seed, it may not turn out the same as the one they just ate, since most are hybrids. However, they can still have fun growing it and finding out what the base of the hybrid was like. Of course, certain trees may not grow in your area, but the kids can still have fun experimenting, and to save disappointment, you could get them a tree that does grow well in the area. Citrus seeds usually germinate readily and could be placed in small pots on the windowsill until they germinate. Orange and lemon trees grow readily in a wide variety of climates and don’t take up too much room. Peaches, plums nectarines and apricots are others to consider if your climate is right for them. Measuring how quickly the trees go can be made fun when they compare it with their own growth rate. Allow them to measure their height on a nearby fence and mark in the date with a waterproof pen. Then let them do the same with the tree. Of course, once the fruit is ripe the fun will really begin. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kids 'n bamboo For something totally unusual try getting some rare seeds from the seed man. This rare plant from the cabbage family will grow into a walking stick in a maximum of 300 days. In fact people have been growing walking sticks from this plant for some centuries. It is Brassica oleracea longata. Plant the seeds 40 inches apart early in the spring. With good growing practices, the slender stem grows straight and strong. Allow it to harden in the garden. In late winter pull the plants, cut off the roots and crown, and hang inside to dry. When it feels as solid as a cricket bat it is ready. You get 15 seeds per package $2.15. You could also encourage the children to eat healthy by letting them grow a bright orange cauliflower. The colour is not affected by cooking. This cauliflower is called the cheddar Hybrid Cauliflower and is available from the same website as the walking stick. See http://www.seedman.com/gard2000.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Click here for more on gardening for children. Copyright 2008
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