SFG with kids

I was trying to let my kids help me plant some carrot seeds tonight, but couldn't figure out how to help them 'aim' the seeds into the right spots with any accuracy. Just punching a hole in the dirt where i wanted a pinch of seeds wasn't a clear enough visual for them.
Then I had the bright idea to grab a kitchen funnel and punch it into each spot where I wanted them to put seed. It worked great! I maintained a nice, orderly planting geometry and they got to help.
Now if I can figure out how to keep them from picking all of the tomatoes before they ripen...

Great idea! I don't have kids, but will tell my sister about this! Her 3 yr old will definitely be able to help more with the planting!

I love this idea! I will be using it. I have my daycare children help with the garden and they love to plant seeds.

Last year a blog mom had a challenge to get kids out in the garden, and there were even prizes for showing up and sharing on your blog. If you have young ones and want to share they are doing it again. I'll be jumping in.
http://sweetgrace.typepad.com/the_inadvertent_farmer/2011/03/gardening-with-childrenare-you-readyam-i.html

They built sunflower houses, mazes and all kinds of really neat ideas.

What a cool project, Val! Do you know the requirements (age of kids, etc.)?

MidTN - this year I glued some of the seeds to a 1sqft paper towel and my 7-year-old will plant the whole towel. She has 2 beds of her own and she will plant in those as well. I love that you are including your kids! The funnel is a great idea!

I am not sure, it's called Kindergardeners, but there were moms with tweens and teens on there too. The mom who does it has one or two married kids and younger ones too. My youngest two are 14 & 12, but I also have a 5yo grandson who has his own box. I'll be sharing info about him and my kids, I remember when I was a young mom, I treasured tips and info from moms with older kids, not to mention it gave me hope that mine would grow up and the terrible twos would pass. Little did I realize that with my boys, that stage passing meant passing them on to another woman when they were big kids........I should have realized that that is exactly what my Mother In Law did with hers, but then that's okay, they are no longer my problem. I'm just kidding, I love my grown boys, and my 14yo son too, but we tend to butt heads from time to time, that's why we keep an axe and pletny of wood to chop or haul. As for my daughter, she retreats to her room and I to mine for a bit.

My grandson loves working in his box, he to date has onions, carrots, garlic, basil and marigolds. We will be putting cherry tomatoes in it soon.

Excellent idea! My 5 yr old is very into placing seeds and I don't let her help nearly as much as she wants to due to the placement. I am using this idea for sure. She even gets her own box this year and she is so happy about it.

Hi,
You can also use a pinch of flour. It shows up easily on soil. Have fun.
Patty in Yorktown

I just started looking into SFG and wondered how i could get my 5 year old daughter involved from the start. So as i will be building the box really soon i wanted some way to keep her busy while i build the box. So i had the idea of printing out some grids with circles on it that need colouring in.

A square foot piece of paper with circles where the holes will be, say 4 to a square, that she can colour in and work out where the 4 holes need to be.

Or paint around the circles, cut the circles out, place the paper on the soil and let her place the seeds straight through the holes in the paper.

Or (new idea from writing this) even a picture of what needs to go in what grid, say 4 beans, a square foot picture of a bean plant with 4 holes in it. I might even use one corner of the print out to show a meal that she likes that has that certain veg in it.

After a couple of growing sessions she wont even need the print out and just look at the seed packet, think "beans, 4 to a grid" stick her finger out, go 1 2 3 4, job done.


Happy growing

Something else you can do is to get a piece of cardboard, cut it the size of the square then cut little holes out for the spacing for where the seeds must go. lay it on the bed and plant a seed anyhere there is a spot. Works good for us big kids too!

DreamsCatcher101 wrote:Or (new idea from writing this) even a picture of what needs to go in what grid, say 4 beans, a square foot picture of a bean plant with 4 holes in it. I might even use one corner of the print out to show a meal that she likes that has that certain veg in it.

Or all of that. Cut out a square in paper... half (or diagonal) could be a picture or drawing of the plant. Other half could be family photos, recipes, serving tips, quotes, whatever you like. Print, laminate, punch out holes for template planting....instant family heirloom. Make it reversible for multiple plants that share the same spacing!

Megan wrote:Or all of that. Cut out a square in paper... half (or diagonal) could be a picture or drawing of the plant. Other half could be family photos, recipes, serving tips, quotes, whatever you like. Print, laminate, punch out holes for template planting....instant family heirloom. Make it reversible for multiple plants that share the same spacing!

Great ideas

Another idea is to put a border around it and colour code them to areas in the box. Lets say a red border means tall plants, blue means short plants. Show which plants need to go where so the sun doesn't get blocked by the tall plants.

There is so many things that could go on the template,

Sow and harvest dates.
How deep to sow.
Pest's, diseases and cures.
Good and bad companion plants.
Does it need a cloche or trellis.
Could even laminate a seed packet to it.

And if you are doing it as a family heirloom, put a mucky hand print on it before your laminate it.

[

And if you are doing it as a family heirloom, put a mucky hand print on it before your laminate it. [/quote]

Love this idea!!

Gwynn

These are great ideas! I was out today planting with my 5 year old and he did fine on peas and spinach but had trouble with carrots - there were just too many darn holes! I'm definitely doing the cardboard template idea before I get him out there again! I probably have a ton of 12x12 pieces of chipboard from my brief attempt at scrapbooking!

A couple of days ago, my 2 1/2 year old was wandering around our yard. I wasn't watching him too closely I guess(we're fenced, don't worry!) He walked past me into the house saying something about washing something. This is common, he gets annoyed when he gets his balls, bats, frisbees etc.. dirty and he goes into the laundry room to rinse them off and comes back out, weirdo. When he came back out, I asked what he had to wash and he handed me a pile of plant marking tags! He pulled out all the tags for the seeds the 5 year old and I had put in the day before and washed them! (Luckily, I marked everything on a grid on paper so I still know where everything is!)

nancy wrote:What a cool project, Val! Do you know the requirements (age of kids, etc.)?

MidTN - this year I glued some of the seeds to a 1sqft paper towel and my 7-year-old will plant the whole towel. She has 2 beds of her own and she will plant in those as well. I love that you are including your kids! The funnel is a great idea!

This is a good idea too, what kind of glue do you use? Just elmer's?

With the kids at our community garden, we just used Elmer's washable school glue.

I used Elmer's Glue-All, which is apparently different than School Glue (I learned this when making slime). I had a lot left over. I folded the paper towel to the appropriate number of seeds per box and then put the tiniest dab of glue I could in each square. Used the tip of a pencil to help get the tiniest seeds. So far I've been thrilled with the whole idea. I had planned on spraying them with water before planting, but I couldn't find a spray-bottle at a moment's notice and, well, there was plenty of water down at the garden (there are still allotments under water and a rather big lake in the field across the drive), so I just dunked the towels in standing water before planting. So easy to bury! I'll let you know if/when anything germinates.

Glendale-gardener wrote:A couple of days ago, my 2 1/2 year old was wandering around our yard. I wasn't watching him too closely I guess(we're fenced, don't worry!) He walked past me into the house saying something about washing something. This is common, he gets annoyed when he gets his balls, bats, frisbees etc.. dirty and he goes into the laundry room to rinse them off and comes back out, weirdo. When he came back out, I asked what he had to wash and he handed me a pile of plant marking tags! He pulled out all the tags for the seeds the 5 year old and I had put in the day before and washed them! (Luckily, I marked everything on a grid on paper so I still know where everything is!)

LOL! That is pretty cute. You are a lot more organized than I am. I would have just had to wait until the stuff came up to know what I had planted.

Gwynn

Too funny! A paper copy of your planting diagram is always a good thing, I think. I certainly referred to mine a few times last year!