With spring officially sprung and summer just around the corner, it is the perfect time to get the kids out into the garden for some fresh air and mud time rather than screen time.
Growing up I spent many a spring day with my grandpa in his allotment, mixing up compost, adding fertiliser and helping him plant seeds for the summer and beyond. He grew a mix of vegetables and flowers, which led to my favourite summer activity of picking bouquets of fresh flowers for my granny. Watching the vegetables grow and then being able to pick and eat them was something I never really gave much thought to growing up. However, now that I have my own kiddos I understand the importance and I am eternally grateful for the understanding of where food comes from that helping my grandpa to grow his veg gave me.
We were in a supermarket when my littlest one pointed to a bunch of carrots with the greens still attached and was fascinated by them. When I told him that they were carrots “Just like the ones we had last night” he couldn’t get over the fact that they had these feathery green shoots on them and what we normally got didn’t. As 4-year olds are want to do, he immediately had to know EVERYTHING about the finer points of carrot growing which is why we spent the better part of this weekend digging out what will soon be our families very own veg patch in the back garden. I decided that if I was going to have to explain the finer points of where veg comes from (hint: not the front park of the supermarket) we may as well go whole hog on it and see the whole process out, from seed to plate!
Attempting a veg patch is surprisingly straight forward, you need a patch of ground and some basic gardening implements, if you don’t have any already I’ve found some lovely bargains for very.co.uk. A disused flower bed and even large pots can all be used to grow vegetables in, for best results choose a spot that gets plenty of sun. I would recommend adding some compost to the earth if not much has been grown in it previously. Get the kids involved right from the very start and have them help turn up the earth and work the compost in. When the ground is prepared you can start the grand planting! Salad items are great plants to start out with and you will start seeing shoots fairly quickly which is ideal for keeping kids engaged with the project. Don’t forget that keeping your plants healthy will be an ongoing project; make up charts to ensure the plants get watered regularly for example, not to mention having a boat load of fun creating anti-slug traps amongst other things!
Our carrots are in the very beginning stages but I am hopeful that they will do well. As we crouched over the ground together to cover up the seeds it was almost like my grandpa was there with us, I can only imagine he would be smiling at our endeavours.
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Love the tips. I just planted some parsnips for the first time I hope they do as well as your carrots.
That’s lovely that your carrot garden is turning out awesome!
Those carrots look lovely, such an awesome inspiration! Love that bountiful yield of peppers, too. Congrats! I hope you replicated the experience every years as your children grew up.