Gardening With Kids – We’ve Gone A Bit Potty!
It’s that time of year again! As February eases into March, and there is a hint of warmth in the sun, planting begins in earnest and there are lots of ways to get children involved.
When we got in from school yesterday I set Bonus Boy to work making newspaper plant pots. These are fab because, not only are they free, they are also beneficial to many plants. Lots of little seedlings don’t like all the disruption of being moved from a plastic pot into the garden, if you plant them in newspaper tubes you don’t have to disturb them! You can plant them straight into the ground when the time comes and the newspaper will degrade naturally while the seed does its thing. Newspaper tubes are also nice and long and straight which is great for sweet peas (and later for runner beans) which like a long root run.
We used the pages from our local newspaper which is tabloid sized. We took one page and folded it in half, top to bottom, he then rolled it around a rolling pin leaving about an inch free at the bottom (don’t do this too tightly or you won’t get the pot off the pin without a fight), folded the bottom up and removed it from the pin.
Each tube was stacked into an old plastic mushroom box and filled with compost before he popped a seed into each one. We got six tubes in this box, they were a bit wobbly so I packed in a bit of extra newspaper to stop them toppling over and chucking compost all over the house.
These are sweet peas which we are starting off indoors, so the mushroom tray has no holes in it to avoid stained windowsills.
We have also planted spinach, purple sprouting broccoli and broad beans into pots outside to get going with our growing. All of these could be planted directly in the ground but our walled garden is slug infested and I like to give the plants a head start!
If you’ve got any questions about gardening with children or getting going with growing pop them in a comment and I will do my best to answer them!
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What a great way of getting your little one gardening. And a good tip about sweet peas – I’m inspired to get on with my planting now too especially as I think I’ll be at home a lot this summer.
Hooray! Let me know how you get on and come back for regular tips and updates!
We are due to start this, I was wondering if we should have a seed swap
Seed swaps are fab! We have one locally, I must look up when it is. We could try and arrange one between the two of us if you’d like (and anyone else who fancies joining in)
This is brilliant. We’ve just received a selection of seeds. Can they all be planted indoors initially or are there any varieties that have to be planted in the garden, and if so when? And (sorry about this) what sort of compost do we buy or is there only one sort? *smiles sweetly*
Some can be planted outside, it should tell you on the back of the packets what can be planted where and when but if you want me to tell you you’ll need to let me know what you have to plant! Seeds don’t need a rich compost to start them off and I use a peat free multi purpose compost which seems to do the job! I’m happy to go into more detail if you let me know what you’re growing!
xxx
Thanks Chris. We’ve got the following seeds: basil, cress, sunflowers, violets, carrots and tomatoes. They’ve been sent to us by a PR company (!) so there is no information on the back of the packets. I’m particularly interested in which of these I an plant indoors. Of the ones I can I plan to go out and buy some more seeds
What’s you favourite non standard think to grow i.e. none of the classic runner beans etc? We have a very small raised bed so tend to grow a healthy crop of salad leaves and then a few other things tucked in the side. Also love growing things like purple carrots, anything you cant often buy to be honest
Our garden isn’t very big so anything we grow has to prove its worth; we haven’t got room for enormous crops and generous rows! I try to grow only things I know we will eat or things which are counted as ‘luxuries’ in the supermarket and hence have a hiked price. My particular favourite at the moment is purple sprouting broccoli and I planted some seeds yesterday. I loved growing a little block of sweetcorn before we had cats, they taste so amazing straight from the plant and into the pan and the sound of the wind blowing through them was very soothing. I have a stupid cat though who scratches at the leaves and shreds them – I might try them again anyway this year though because I am now salivating writing about them!
I grew purple carrots last year but they were a bit disappointing, were you successful with them?
Hi Chris,
As passionate allotment keepers, we have involved our children in growing and enjoying good veg… its good to see you spreading the gardening word…. I wondered whether you would be interested in reviewing one of our favourite gardening gifts – Grow My First Ever Flower Garden
http://www.crafts4kids.co.uk/canova-grow-my-first-ever-flower-garden/p1594. Please take a look and let me know whether you would be interested.
thank you – Fiona