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Monday, August 29, 2011

Gardening with Kids

Flowers had became a passion with us... you already know this ;-) . Our kids try to follow us in this passion and we spent many beautiful days gardening with them.


 Veggie gardens - first sowing seeds project of our kids
Veggie gardens -  first "sowing seeds" project

We explained them many times that you will became self-sustainable only if you had acres or a huge yard, but is enough to put some seeds in some soil, to water them carefully, to put them in a lighten spot ... and you'll be amazed how quickly will appear the little plants. Actually you can nurture plants on a farm, in a small balcony on X floor of an apartment building in a big city or in your room... is just a matter of pleasure, time and space and, why not, a modality to overcome everyday stress.  

Well, we really love to share some of the successfully experiments of carrying for plants done this summer by our kids.

 Veggie garden - sowing seeds project


Few months ago, both of them planted in a big plastic pot their own veggie garden: with beans, onion, radish, cucumber and red pepper ..starting them from seeds. Both of them made "fancy arrangements" when planted the seeds, discovering somehow their own personality... They planted white onion with radishes seeds in half of the pot, and climbing plants (beans and cucumber) in the other half . You may remark some differences in their design. 





Veggie garden - sowing veggie seeds project

It was very fun to see how carefully they planted the seeds. This year seems to be started a challenge between them to see how good are they at struggling to grow veggies and flowers and to care them properly.  Who water the plants?  ... in Vancouver the rainy weather with moderate warmer days helped them a lot ;-).

I know the plants were really crowdy for a while... but important was that they harvested their own "crop".











Kids project - sowing coconut seeds
Kids project - sowing coconut seeds


In the same period of spring they started (unexpectedly) another experiment. They have taken a bunch of Pelargoniums Grossularioides seeds  gathered last year from our garden (coconut scented foliage) and sow them in a tiny transparent plastic pot with vermiculite... They were very curious about how to scarified the seeds when we were sowing last set of pelargonium seeds ... and we were very happy to explain them the entire process.


Don't ever underestimate the thriving power of a seed or the power of a child to change the world ...  








Listening to their story, their project was a little bit different than ours: the seeds were removed from mericarp and "carefully scratched", then were planted in vermiculite in a small transparent plastic pot "to see better the roots". The pot was hidden in their room for few weeks, close to the window... until when they decided to share the result with us, because became worried about the unexpected number of plants grown. We helped them to move the seedlings in a big jardiniere and after few months, they gather their own coconut seeds.


Kids project - harvesting coconut seeds planted by them
Kids project - harvesting coconut seeds sowed by them

We are really happy for their success and we encourage them to continue their gardening because we believe that day-to-day involvement with plants have enormous potential to charm and improve any life.

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