I have a black thumb. I’m not proud of it. It just is what it is. I come from a long line of wonderful gardeners. I have surrounded myself with family and friends who have lavish potted plants, raised flower beds, and beautiful tomatoes every year. And I kill water plants from over watering! BUT this year I will teach my children about planting the seed. I hope it grows!
“A garden which contains shelters is ideal, because the children can play or sleep under them, and can also bring their tables out to work or dine. In this way they may live almost entirely into the open air…” ~Maria Montessori, Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook.
Every year I tell myself that this year will be different This year I will be able to grow wonderful home-grown food, gorgeous flowers, and help my budget a little because of all my efforts. I started our garden a little different this year. This year my kids helped me start the seeds for our garden. I hope this process will help them grow to love gardening and for it to be a part of life and not a forced habit. I’m confident in our abilities to have at least one tomato to add to our salad and some basil to throw onto a homemade pizza!
My first stop when I need advice (after talking with my husband) is to talk with my Mom. I have been blessed with two amazing Mom’s (my mom and my mother-in-law) that are always supportive and helpful with all my random questions on how to best get my kids from point A to point B (the end of their lives). My Mom reminded me the other day that February is the time to start seedlings to have to move to the garden. She lives in NC so I searched for a site that gave the best plant seeds to plant in GA. I came across an amazingly informational and helpful site called One Hundred Dollars A Month and their posted Regional Planting Guide. You can go to this same site to view a chart that lists all the fruits and vegetables by month for your area that should be planted in the ground or started by seed indoors. We chose 5 items we thought we would like to have in our garden and started with those (keeping in mind my black thumb!).
We gathered up some materials. First, a shopping trip to pick out our seeds. Samuel and Dad collected our seed packages and picked up a bag of soil from the store.
My Mom suggested starting our seeds in toilet paper rolls. The cardboard will easily peel away when it is time to move the seedlings into pots or ground. We found some new child size shovels from Big Lots for $3 total and had a spray bottle from Target for $1. I saved a couple of our old milk jugs and cut them in half for containers to hold our seedling tubes and to use as buckets. Also not pictured is some clear plastic wrap and kitchen twine to make the greenhouse. We have had the black tub for a while. We found it at Lowe’s in the concrete section for $13. It has been useful in so many wonderful ways!
I started by folding over one end of our toilet paper rolls. Nothing fancy, just a way to keep the dirt from falling out of the bottom.
We added some seeds to our roll. Then we added some dirt into our rolls. This is a great pouring activity. Samuel liked to try pouring with both hands.
We covered our seeds with more dirt. I then wrote the names of what we planted on the side of the rolls with permanent marker.
Avalyn was glad to explore all the new items used for gardening. She happily watched and crawled around, but wasn’t as interested in getting into the dirt.
We also filled a pot to plant our basil. These pots I found at IKEA for $.99. They have seen many dead plants so far so here’s hoping this basil is different since Samuel planted it!
After we planted all the seeds in our rolls and pot, we watered with a spray bottle to avoid drenching and ultimately killing our un-sprouted plants. I can’t wait to see how our little seeds grow!
We have gardened off and on. I almost always plant tomatoes. Cute bunnies have been an issue for us here. They eat my plants down to nothing–even when they are bigger plants! I am not sure what we will do this year but wanted to wish you well with your gardening projects. I think it is wonderful for children to grow something themselves.
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We just put up a fence for our front garden to keep those little bunnies out. I hope they stay away. It doesn’t help my challenged gardening self when they nibble on my plants!
Oh yes – me black thumb too – my brother bought me a plant when he came to visit two weeks back and it’s already withered…
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I hope I don’t let my black thumb get in the way of the kids loving to garden. Each year I try, with little success yet. But I have high hopes. 🙂
Thanks for the detailed tutorial! I have a black thumb too – my 8 yr old wanted to start seedlings this year, and I had no idea where to start. We ended up using a cardboard egg carton, but the soil dries out too quickly now that the weather here in Texas is getting warm. I’ll have to remember your tricks next year. (I found your link on Thoughtful Thursdays).
You are welcome! Good luck next year. I keep fighting my black thumb. I hope you do too!
We have been doing a lot of this lately. Thanks for the great ideas
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I love this post! I think we should start doing our gardening as well 😀
How did your garden turn out? Did the seeds grow out of the toilet paper rolls? I’m curious to know the results! 🙂 Sweet little post. 🙂
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I love this, thanks for the wonderful tips! I’m also committed to doing lots of gardening with my kids this year. Last year our garden was bare and it was so depressing. I honestly don’t care what we plant this year, although we’ve planted some carrot seeds, and yesterday we planted some sweet potatoes and sunflower seeds. More to come! The children have such fun 🙂
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