ABCs, pizza and more
Here are more gardening ideas geared toward children or the child inside.
- ABC garden: Go through the seed catalogs and find one plant that starts with each letter of the alphabet (use common or botanical name). Either purchase premade wooden letters, prime and paint with an exterior color and attach to a wooden stake or draw or print letters out and color using crayons or markers and laminate and attach to a wooden stake. Grow three of the same plants together and place the wooden letter on a stake in the middle of the group. Arrange the letters according to order and use the garden as a way for your child to learn their letters and how to care for assorted plants.
- Pioneer garden: If your children enjoy historical fiction, such as the American Girl series or the Little House on the Prairie series, compliment this interest by researching which plants would have been grown in a pioneer's garden. Make labels using natural materials like wood and sticks. Learn how to make cordage from grasses, grow gourds that you can dry and make a dipping spoon from. Add a weather-protected rocking chair in the space so your child can be submersed in the garden as they read the adventures of their favorite character.
- Pizza garden: Draw a circle in the ground and then slice the circle into four pieces. These lines will represent your paths and should be 18 inches wide. Mulch this path. For your pizza slices, select vegetables and herbs you would use to make a pizza. The pizza can always be enlarged if you need larger slices.
- Sunflower spiral: Place a birdbath, chair or sundial in the middle of your circle of sunflowers. Make sure you plant an edible variety if you plan to snag some seeds for snacks. Make a sundial using only a stick. For fun: use this time to learn about solar power by making solar ovens to bake cookies or cobblers. Measure at what rate your sunflower grows, recording the data for the whole summer. Save some seeds to plant again next year.
- Nutrition garden: Find a good resource book at the library to learn which vegetables provide the minerals and vitamins we need to be healthy. Grow all the vegetables that are good sources of vitamin A together in the shape of a capitol letter "A" (bird's eye view). Do the same for the vegetables that provide vitamin B and C and so on.
- First aid garden: Research herbal medicine or traditional Chinese medicine. Discover what plants have been used for healing purposes. Numerous herbs can be grown and harvested for use in teas, tinctures or salves that can help with upset stomachs, sore throats, fevers, cuts or burns. For fun: Learn about different health care professions, the chemistry of plants, poisonous plants as well as edible plants or plant folklore.
- Fairy garden. If your child is interested in fairies, select plants with delicate blooms and miniature varieties to plant in a shape that will allow your child access to all of the plants. The idea of flying and free movement should be encouraged for your child fairy. For fun: Make wings out of cardboard, fabric and elastic. Host fairy parties (be sure to have fairy dust on hand; glitter) and have the party-goers create fairy houses using natural materials such as seed pods and dried grass. Decorate your plants in this garden with these houses to encourage fairies to come and visit your garden. Read stories about famous and not-so-famous fairies, pixies and sprites.
