Posts Tagged ‘Gardening for all ages’

Kids Gardening Activities for Outdoor Fun

With the right equipment, gardening with kids can be both safe, fun and an excellent children’s activity. It’s commonly recognised by most parents that children lack an interest in vegetables, but we also know that the flavour of home grown produce can’t be beaten.

So read on and watch the videos to find out how gardening with kids can be fun!

Preparing for the Garden Centre
 
A good idea is to start at the very beginning with your child. I decided that with my son Sam who is three, we would try planting up a set of Hug Pots as a fun children’s activity. I began by taking him along to the Garden Centre to choose some plants.
 
As an idea I would suggest to any parents who are deciding to do some gardening with their children to select plants which are either quick to grow, or are already looking interesting such as strawberries, peppers, tomatoes or seeds such as salads and cress.

There is nothing worse that staring at a blank patch of soil with nothing happening. Even as adults I think we can all admit to getting over-excited at the sight of a brand new shoot poking through the soil. For myself, it usually involves me shouting ‘shoooots’ in an odd high-pitched voice and dragging my other half into the garden so he too can understand my joy.

If I said the trip around the garden centre was without the stresses and strains usually associated with shopping with a young child I would be lying. Having to keep one eye on him and one eye on where the trolley was going is surely testing my multi-tasking abilities. Overall it was however a really enjoyable experience for both of us and it was good to see an inquisitive little mind at work having fun and wanting to learn.

As an additional treat, albeit a compromise so we could actually leave before the Garden Centre shut, we also went and looked at the ‘fish-ies’, you may notice we spotted some ‘coral chicken’.  
I fear that’s a phrase I wont be allowed to forget in a long time!

Planting up the Hug Pots

Planting was fun and it turned out to be a good children’s activity. We planted some peppers, tomatoes and chillies. Sam loved his Hug Pots and in turn enjoyed his gardening becoming chief dirt digger and deliverer in no time! This was a great opportunity for him to make a mess, learn about planting and also as a result to take an interest in caring for the plants later on.

Being a creative child, Sam also found that the Hug Pots were ideal for building sand castles!

Looking for kids gardening ideas? We think a good way to get kids interested in gardening is to have a fun plant pot which will appeal to them and get them wanting interact with it, in this case planting.

Earlier this year we submitted our Hug Pot plant pot to Bizziebaby for review by three families who fancied doing some kids gardening. All of the children were between the ages of 3 and 6 and the planters provided an ideal opportunity for the children to try their hand at gardening (with a little help of course!).

The result was a resounding success scoring 4.6 out of 5! The kids gardening ideas involved the planting of everything from strawberries, tomatoes and even peas and was enjoyed by all. If you are thinking of getting your kids interested in gardening, why not try planting something completely different such as a venus fly trap!

The Hug Pot plant pot was designed by Benjamin Hubert to look fun and friendly. They are a great kids gardening idea made from a lightweight child-safe material and a much better choice in comparrrison to their breakable terracotta counterparts. Simply fill with compost, add some seeds or seedlings and give it a good water!

You can read the parents reviews here at the renowned parenting review site BizzieBaby.

Remember the Hug Pots are available to buy online for £12.50 per set for a limited time only, so grab yours while you can!

So I finally got round to digging out the wellies.  Look out garden here I come!

In April I was able to do a fair amount of prep in my garden, planning the size and location of my newly expanded Cultivation Station, I was even successful in recruiting myself a little help setting it all up. I say help, mummies little helper is not so helpful after all, good boy raking my dirt but bad boy for taking a hammer to my Cultivation Station! Thankfully it survived his bashing with just a few dents and scrapes.

I planted my seeds in polystyrene seed trays and to my surprise they all started shooting and growing quite enthusiastically (Yep I’ve still got it!) However long bank holiday weekends camping with the family and work commitments meant I still hadn’t managed to get out there and plant my seedlings.

But now I’M BACK, I have now planted out some of my seedlings I planted in April YAY!. With mummies little helper again helping, but not so much! I have put the little babies in my gargantuan Cultivation Station. I have tried listening to the Virgin Gardner (she cracks me up) and tried to do companion planting to ensure bugs etc don’t eat my veg but only time will tell if I got it right (indeed if she got it right). Our Virgin Gardner keeps talking about a plan but I must admit I have no plan. What with mummies little and big helpers not being so helpful I plant what I can when I can where there’s space. Maybe next year!

I still have a lot of work to do ie completing filling in the centre of my raised bed but at least I have done some planting now. I’m also very pleased with my pretty flowers along the top of my sunken deck and I’ve also got a Lucky Clover hanging basket with pretty flowers in (I like pretty flowers). Last year it successfully grew tomatoes which our Virgin Gardner was quite jealous of because hers got blight.

I’ll blog off for now but look out for my next post where I’ll be getting fruity!

Brrrrrr its cold!

I have ice hanging off my computer screen! Maybe that’s what people mean when their computer ‘freezes’? Maybe not….

Anyhow with not a huge amount to do in the old garden at the moment, or for the past month to be fair, I thought it was about time I shared my experience with you of planting up a set of Hug Pots. If you look closely in the photos you may notice something bright, that’s the rare light known as sunshine, remember that?

Anyway for those of you who are not familiar with the Hug Pot, they are cute looking planters designed by Benjamin Hubert that weigh next to nothing.

I must admit the thought of planting up the Hug Pots conjured up childlike excitement within me, they are pretty much the only ‘fun’ looking plant pots I have and well they do look cute! I could actually imagine children enjoying planting these up as a fun gardening activity, so if you do have children you may want to bear these in mind as a fun planting activity for next year.

Well the poor rosemary must have been relieved to have been finally planted up. We had pretty much left it on the living room window sill since the summer to defend itself against a couple of hyper plant-attacking kittens, which thinking about it doesn’t really bode well for the Christmas tree! Oh well, we have only lost a couple of baubles so far so I am *sure* it will be fine.

After planting we now have our very own kitchen herb growing station consisting of mint, rosemary and lemon balm, the latter of which is currently sitting happily on the kitchen window sill.

I have to say that I really like the Hug Pots outside, the blue is particularly nice in the garden and feels quite Mediterranean (when the sun is out), and I have already had positive comments about the mint in particular, which is currently surviving quite nicely in the cold.

Oh and before I forget, the Virgin Gardener has another top tip for you! Use EPS for drainage, I am told it does the job really nicely. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t have any to hand so my Hug Pots have heavy rocks in the bottom.

Ah, the benefit of hindsight!