Saturday 8 June 2013

Kids Grow Wild In The Garden

My children have always spent lots of time outdoors because we camp a fair bit. The older children were lucky because they used to camp every other weekend. Because they are teenagers now and busy making their own independent lives we can't get away as much as we'd like, but we can still get out in the garden and play.


When I saw the #KidsGrowWild Challenge I thought it was a brilliant thing to be a part of. I have a vegetable plot in our garden which keeps our slugs well fed all Summer and my children love helping to plant and water, and pick anything which looks remotely ripe! We're lucky because we have a big garden, but it is sadly lacking in beautiful colours because it's mainly easy to care for shrubs.


We applied to take part and a few days later a big box arrived with very exciting contents - a fantastic gardening bag full of children's gardening equipment.

The boys loved the gardening gloves, and the chance to use proper gardening tools like Mummy does!
 

Before I could stop them they'd decided where they thought some seeds should be planted and started digging!


I did point out that it might not be wise, and possibly we should start a little further away from where the lawn mower would be next time boy no.1 cuts the grass!


Inside the bag were 3 packets of flower seeds - Sunflowers, Pansies and a flower mix. They can all be sown directly into the ground, but our slugs are really hungry and there are bazillions of them, so we decided it might give the baby plants a better chance if we started some seeds in trays.


The trays I use are trays from inside Lego Christmas Avent Calendars - which makes them free and recycled, but at £25 each also possibly the most decadent seed trays ever! I made a small hole in the bottom of each section to let out excess water and filled it with compost.


They were both very impressed with how tiny the seeds were and got to work putting one or two in each section of the seed tray. I'm not sure a little fork or trowel was actually essential for this part of the job..


There was a bit of a fight over who got to water the seeds once they were planted, so we came to a compromise....


We decided to sow the mixed seeds directly into the ground among the shrubs, so that hopefully we can add a bit of colour later in the Summer. The seeds were very interesting shapes, textures and colours and the boys liked trying to guess what the flowers from each type will look like.


We prepared the ground and added a bit of compost to give the baby seeds a better chance.


Because of our slug problem I've been saving egg shells to put around plants. Slugs don't like to climb over egg shells because they're sharp, so hopefully it will help deter them from eating so many of our seedlings.


Adding the egg shell was possibly one of the boys favourite jobs - I don't know how successful it will be, only time will tell us that, but fingers crossed.



Once we'd finished there was just the job of giving the seeds a little drink, standing back and admiring our hard work.


In a few weeks time we'll be able to update you with how well we're doing, and hopefully our green shrubbery will have a bit more colour for all of the insects and more nectar for the visiting bees.



We were sent our fabulous Little Pals Children's Gardening Set from Britmums and Money Supermarket in order to take part in this gardening challenge. I think it's gorgeous so I'm including a link - you can buy your own here...

22 comments:

  1. Great post! Love the pics!!
    The flowers grow so quickly! Ours only took a couple of weeks to start seeing them growing...Reminds me they need watering...lol

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    1. Thank you! I'm glad the flowers grow quickly - my boys have been out to look twice already today, I don't think they'd be happy to wait too long! :D

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  2. I didnt realise that eggshell keep slug away! Great tips!

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  3. Looks like they had a lot of fun! We still have to do ours, like the lego advent calender tray idea, will have to see whether I can find something similar to use in my house to save me buying something specially

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    1. I would save everything if I could, so I'm really pleased it's only taken me 5 months to find a spiffy use for them!

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  4. Ah, lovely post. It made me smile how the boys were wearing one glove each. Bud really enjoys helping in the garden too and it's a really great way for them to learn too.

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    1. Thank you! It's handy one is left handed and one right handed :p

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  5. Looks like they had so much fun. That is an extremely expensive tray for planting seeds in though! Look forward to seeing some pics when they grow :)

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  6. What a great idea! I've been toying with the diea of giving the kids a bit of the garden each to plant things in.

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    1. Do it - you know they'd love it! - but protect it from the dogs big feet.... ;)

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  7. We used trays 2, glad i did as the flower mix just looks like cress or some weeds at the moment! (I would of probably dug them up by accident)
    Mel x

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    1. I'm really glad I put down compost where we planted ours straight in the ground for the same reason! :D

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  8. Looks like they had fun! Commenting for myself and on behalf of BritMums and thanking you for taking part

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    1. Thank YOU for letting me - the plants are growing now and it's a good thing all round! :)

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  9. great post! didn't know about egg shells! thanks for the tip good luck! x
    http://amummysview.com

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  10. great post! We do the eggshell thing too. xxx

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    1. Thank you! Glad someone doesn't think I'm insane for saving those eggshells - my partner giggles every time he sees them!

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  11. Can't wait to see how the plants look. We have a snail problem in our garden although I haven't tried the shell trick yet. It kinda makes me laugh that the sharp edges hurt their little "feet".

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    1. Hahaha....it is funny. I almost expect to see them jumping about a bit going 'ooch, ouch' :D

      The little seedlings are doing really well so far, the sunflowers are about 2 inches tall already! - fingers crossed it continues :)

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