Calgary Garden Coach

last day of school: flowers for teacher

Yesterday was my oldest daughter's last day of kindergarden.  I can't believe it! 
She was quite proud to bring her teachers these bouquets that were cut from our very own garden.  They will look a little better, I think, once they are in proper vases!
And someday I really must learn a little about flower arranging... I only know how to grow them, not how to arrange them very well...

how's this for a magazine spread about iceland poppy?

I just had to show you this!  My oldest daughter (5 1/2) decided the other day to take pictures of iceland poppies - one bud, one unopened flower, and one flower, plus she had me take a picture of her holding them all.  She said she was going to use them for a magazine page about poppies!!  Brilliant, eh?  And totally independent of me, I might add.

She must have got the idea from the gardening magazines I have lying around the house.  Kids notice so much more than we even realize!!  I am making a mental note to myself NOT to leave fashion magazines with pictures of waif-like models lying around...

garden planning for kid-friendly gardens

Thinking about getting the kids a little more involved in the garden this year?  I can say from experience that it really is possible to have a beautiful garden that your kids are allowed to play in.  The most important things (I think) that you need to do are:

1.  Let go of a little perfectionism.  Let the kids pick flowers if they like them.  I have a few special plants that my kids know I don't want them to touch, and they know they are not to step on any plants, but otherwise they are free to enjoy the garden as they would like.  Since I have mostly perennials, I also know that even if the kids pick all the flowers (which they don't generally do), the plant will still come back next year.  Some plants even flower more if you cut the flowers off anyway!

2.  Have pathways and hideaways to make it fun and easy for the kids to explore the garden.  Just put down some mulch on the pathways and you can always plant something there in a few years.

3.  Make sure the kids have some ownership in garden planning (this is related to letting go of some perfectionism!)  Give them a spot to dig.  Let them plant some easy-to-grow plants (plants from large seeds and bulbs are great).  It's a nature, environment, and science lesson with fresh air and exercise to boot!

4. Plant edibles to snack on while playing outside.  My only mistake is not planting enough - the kids seem to eat all the strawberries and tomatoes every year before I get any!  Would you believe they even love salad if it comes from the garden?  Plants that are interesting to smell or touch are also great for kids.

Here are some more ideas I've found recently from other websites:
A crawl tunnel from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2009/mar/10/children

I could easily see this made much taller (for bigger kids) simply by using longer poles.

Lots of ideas posted at the Garden Blogger's Design workshop on Gardening with Kids.

Also some tips below, mostly related to growing edibles with kids, from one of my favourite new websites, the Garden Girl's Urban Sustainable Living:

The Family Garde
20 things to help get the youngest in  the family involved in  the garden!

Ever wish you could get the family more excited and involved in the garden?  Here are some tips to help make that happe

1. Start with a trip to the grocery or farmer's market.  Let the kids show you what fruits and vegetables they like.  Do some "compare and contrast" to talk about varieties - so leafy lettuce looks different than romaine, etc.  Hopefully you'll be able to do some tasting too.
2. Let each child select seeds to order from seed catalogues or from the seed packet displays at the grocery.  Get them to talk to you about how they make their decisions (why this variety of tomato vs. that one)
3. Divide up the garden so each family member can plant and tend her own garden.  Square Foot Gardening is GREAT for this.
4. Give each child a package of sunflower seeds and let them sprinkle them wherever they like, then watch them sprout and bloom throughout the summer.
5. Be sure to plant a variety of seeds including some that sprout FAST and some that are slow.  Sprout some seeds on wet paper towels so you can watch the progress indoors.
6. Put a bird feeder in or near the garden - birds are great help with pest control.  The birds might eat some of the harvest, but they usually leave plenty.
7. Choose at least one new plant to grow each year - and make sure the family knows you are experimenting.  You'll all try a new food and its more fun when everyone is learning together
8. Grow pumpkins, watermelon, corn, peas, cherry tomatoes, anything "funny colored" like red carrots or purple beans.
9. Get a few garden implements that the kids can really use.  Hardware and garden stores and websites usually carry smaller trowels, and hand tools that can give the kids success.  Try to stay away from buying the plastic rakes and shovels that don't really work and break easily.
10. Get everyone involved in harvesting.  Kids love picking beans, pulling up carrots and radishes, picking strawberries or grapes. 
11. Make a big deal about harvesting - show off the basket of fresh food to everyone in the family and then try to eat a least some of it for your next meal.
12. If your garden space allows, put a table and chairs or a bench to your garden.
13. Have dinner or afternoon tea in the garden. 
14. Invite the neighbors over for cocktails made with some of your garden herbs.
15. Add a birdbath - Its so much fun to watch the animals drink and bathe.
16. Let the kids release ladybugs.
17. Make a worm-composting bin and let the kids be in charge of tending it.  Worms are fun!
18. An older child can install and tend a rain barrel for the garden watering.
19. Even adults can be intimidated by knowing what to harvest.  Show your sweetie how to tell if the tomato is ripe, or how to choose lettuces, onions, whatever.  Then hand them the harvesting basket and YOU go take a break while they experiment, learn, taste, and have fun.
20. Just for fun, see if you and the family can make a favorite food - like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from scratch!  Can you grow nuts in your area?  If not, try grinding nuts into nut-butter at the grocery.  Do berries or grapes grow in your area?  Grow your own, or buy some at the market and make some fresh jelly or jam. Even if you can't grow your own wheat, make a fresh loaf of bread and have your homemade PB&J sandwiches. 

 
Cynthia McKenna is a writer, gardener, Episcopal Priest, and psychotherapist in the Texas Hill Country.  To visit her blog click http://gardengateblog.com.

gardening with kids ideas

I never got around to contributing a post myself (where do these people get the time?), but here is the link to the "Gardening with Kids" design workshop hosted by Gardening Gone Wild.  Lots of great comments and ideas here.

a garden for fairies

  My mother-in-law is really into fairies and hence, now my girls are too.  And now I am too!  This is what I got her for Christmas - a little fairy door and window that can be nailed to the bottom of a tree, fence or other outdoor structure.  Would these not look cute with a little miniature pathway and some dwarf plants in front of them??

It was hard to resist not buying a set for myself (you can even get mailboxes, bridges, fences and more from Natural Pod), but I think by spring I will be building myself a little fairy garden...

planting amaryllis - the gardening never ends!

I may not be getting outside much these days, but it doesn't stop me from planting.  I must really have a problem - I can't even stop myself from buying plants when I'm at the grocery store!

Under the guise of buying this for my kids to plant, I picked this up yesterday.  But really, it seems to me it is a great winter gardening project for kids.  Amaryllis bulbs need nothing but a pot with some growing medium.  They grow quickly, are interesting looking while they're growing and have gorgeous, showy flowers - making them ideal plants for kids. 

... not to mention they make great Christmas decorations and gifts!

snow!

When I looked out the window this morning, I saw snow.  My first thought was "Oh, I need to go take a picture for my blog."  My second thought was "I really should have made getting the kids new mittens a higher priority these last few weeks."  My third thought was "What kind of Mom always thinks about gardening before her kids?!" 

Better go mitten shopping this week-end.

(and BTW I didn't take a pictures until much later on since it was dark at the time anyway...)

Happy Hallowe'en!

Here are the 3 pumpkins I grew this year still in various degrees of ripeness on my laundry room floor.  I thought it would be fun to grow them for the kids and was hopeful they would be ready by Hallowe'en, but no such luck.  Since I have a small urban space, I chose a variety that was fairly compact - but it was only medium in terms of planting to harvest time. 

That's OK, the kids still had fun watching them grow, and I didn't plan to use my homegrown organic pumpkins for jack o'lanterns anyway - they're going to be food!!  Yum.

the log house - what kids love in a garden

This house in my neighbourhood is my kids' favourite.  They call it the "log house" because of the little red fence.  Whenever we walk by, it's almost impossible to keep them from running around in it - sometimes I don't even try because it seems as if it was designed with kids in mind.  Little miniature fences and benches to perch on, pathways to follow, birdhouses and other decorations to check out, what more could you ask for?  Way more fun and interesting than the ubiquitous lawn.
I personally love the pathways made of recycled concrete and stepping stones.
 

a place to dig

Yes, its' true, with little kids it is important to have a spot in the yard where they are allowed to dig.  But for me, any place that is diggable soon gets filled up with plants, I just can't help myself!

So this year I finally had a solution. Why not let them have the bare spot under a spruce tree?  The only problem is that the roots make the ground so hard there that it is impossible to dig with adult shovels, let alone wimpy kid ones.  So when I excavated for a new pathway elsewhere in the yard, I dumped the soil here.  Now they have perfectly good, diggable soil in a place where nothing else would grow anyway.  It ain't pretty, but it works for now!

planting tulips with kids

I know I said I don't like tulips but the flowers are so recognizable and showy, I couldn't resist buying a few packages in my daughters' favourite colours: pink and purple.  This week-end we planted them around the garden together.  It is fun to do as long as you're willing to let them do the "design" work.

The kids picked the spots, we dug each hole together, I put some fertilizer in the bottom and they dropped in five bulbs each, then we covered them back up and they got to stomp the dirt down.  How fun is that?

a garden salad - my kids eat veggies!

After reading lots of articles about how growing veggies will get kids more interested in eating them, I can finally report that yes, it's true!  This lettuce is growing right beside the patio and my kids like to walk over and yank off leaves to munch on while they're playing in the backyard.  I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes!!

... and here's the salad I made last night.  The kids didn't eat the flowers but at least thought they were interesting!  They had 3 helpings of lettuce and tomato.

After blogging about how borage flowers are edible, I decided to give them a try.  I wouldn't say they taste like cucumber, but they do have a pleasant, very mild flavour.  I still think they're nicer in the garden, though.

disappointed in chocolate cosmos

I planted these because they supposedly smell like chocolate, so I thought they'd be a fun plant for the kids.

Ummm, not.  If you stick your nose right into the flower and inhale very deeply, you might catch a faint whiff of chocolate.  But it smells more like the fake-chocolate of the smelly stickers I collected when I was young, rather than a real chocolate fragrance.  No wafting of scent from across the patio, that's for sure...

Also, these are in a terra cotta pot and need watering every day or else they wilt in the heat.  Too much maintenance for me.

Still, I do like the flower colour and I don't give up easily.  Maybe I'll try overwintering them in my cold room just once and if it's not too much effort, I'll keep them and put them in a glazed or plastic pot (more moisture-retentive) next year.

a fast-growing bean teepee for kids

Here's my first attempt at a bean teepee.  I realized when I made it that in order to make the base wide enough for 2 kids to fit under, the tee pee was going to be too short.  Next year I'll invest in some bamboo stakes at least 8 ft long.

Anyway, scarlet runner bean is a fast-growing vine, but it still takes until the end of august for it to fully cover the teepee.  Maybe I should have planted more densely?  I'll give it another shot next year before I decide if the whole effort is worthwhile...

The flowers are finishing now and the beans are starting.

backyard harvest

Speaking of enjoying the garden, we have been enjoying the fruits of my labour, literally as well.�Call me crazy, old-fasioned, a Martha-wannabe, or maybe I've read too much Michael Pollan lately, but I just love the fact that my kids go out in the backyard�every day and pick lettuce leaves, snap peas,�berries and tomatoes to snack on whenever they like.� Is that cool or what?�

The spinach and strawberries are finishing,

the raspberries and tomatoes are starting,

the snap peas really snap,

the carrot thinnings are delish,

and the scarlet runner beans and pumpkins are in blossom.

In fact, my little veggie patch has been so successful that it was no problem convincing my husband to dig up some of the back lawn to make more space for veggies next year!  Yay!

a magic wand from the garden

... the seedhead of allium (ornamental onion) 'Purple Sensation'.   

Performs magic best while still green (once dried and brown, the seeds will shake off easily).

how to make a family mosaic pathway

Here are some of the stepping stones I made for our family mosaic pathway.  According to the directions I got with the mould, you can actually make the stones in place.  Just fill the mould with concrete, lift up the mould, rotate it, place it down again next to the finished stones, and repeat.

But I wanted to mix up colours, so I made the stones in the garage and will put them together in the path later.  The best tip someone gave me was to rent a concrete mixer - it made the project a snap!!

I used bits of whatever I had around to make the mosaics with - some leftover glass from other craft projects, some stones and seashells from my family's trip to Florida in 1985 (can you believe my Mom kept them all these years?), interesting rocks from my own more recent travels, and some of my husband's marbles from when he was a kid! 

For obvious reasons, I made 4 1/2 out of 5 1/2 batches while the big kids were at their grandma's house, then we brought them home to each make a few of their own stones.  We each made handprint and/or footprint ones, and each family member decorated their own stones, plus a few extras for the grandparents.  The kids had a blast, and I even got 4 baby footprints made before she started to fuss.  Next step, excavate the path so we can park in the garage again...

getting kids to eat veggies

It works!  Gardening works!  Well, at least today it did.  My almost-5-year-old has been very difficult to feed lately.  Today she refused lasagna for supper which used to be one of her favourite foods... but she ate 3 1/2 helpings of spinach salad because we picked it from the garden today!  I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.

Freshly picked organic homegrown spinach.  Yum.

Completing two projects is too much to ask

After my husband set up the rain barrels, he took the babe and I started staining the new fence.  This is as far as I got before it was time to go pick up the kids.

It is probably going to look like this for another month or two before we get around to finishing it!  That's the way things go these days...

June cut flowers

When I first started gardening, I almost hated to cut flowers to bring into the house, because I didn't want to lessen the garden display.  But now I have reached that critical amount of plants where you'll never even notice a few flowers missing here and there.

My almost-5-year-old loves to make "posies" so we go around the garden and I help her cut whatever she likes - almost.  There's a few things I still can't bear to cut (giant alliums come to mind) so I tell her they're special to me and she's fine with that.

She chose all these flowers, and I attempted to arrange them for her.  The bouquet includes siberian iris, bleeding heart, sweet rocket, daisies, leopard's bane, iceland poppy, cornflower, snow-in-summer, chives, anemone sylvestris and... a few blades of grass (regular, not ornamental)!!

bean teepee (tipi?)

This year is my first attempt at a bean teepee.  The beautiful bamboo trellis on the right is for peas, and the very rustic, lopsided one on the left is my obviously home-made version for the scarlet runner beans.

I saved 5 straight-ish branches from pruning the lilacs last year.  There is cedar mulch around the inside so the "floor" doesn't get muddy, and I am wrapping string around the outside to give the beans plenty of things to hold on to as they grow (click on the picture for a bigger version and you just might be able to make out the string), leaving a space at the front for a "door".  I planted 5-6 beans around the bottom of each pole.

Scarlet runner beans are very vigorous and fast-growing.  The red flowers are also quite pretty and supposedly attract hummingbirds.  That fits in with my veggie patch / hummingbird & butterfly garden theme (hey, I don't have a lotta space so I had to combine themes!!).  I'm not sure how sturdy my construction is so we'll see how things go this year...

You can also see my trampled raised beds in front.  Seedlings seem to be doing fine!

aaargh!

Gardening teaches patience.  Raising kids teaches patience.  Gardening with kids ... and a non-gardening husband ... teaches more patience!!  I am going to be one patient person by the end of this!!

So I had my hubby make me some little raised beds to plant some veggies in this year.  One of the main reasons for the raised beds was so that it would be easy for the kids to know where NOT to step.  A couple of weeks ago, I put in spinach, beet, lettuce and carrot seeds.  Then it rained for a week and I was happy to have got my seeds in before all that water!  Then yesterday I went out and watered them in the morning and saw lots of little seedlings coming up. 

That evening I came home from work and saw that my raised beds had been trampled and stomped on and had dandelion flowers "planted" in them!!!  My husband apologized profusely - he had let my 2-year-old play in them.  He said he didn't know I had already planted seeds in there.  Fine, but the whole point was they were supposed to learn not to step on the raised beds anyway!!  Grr.

I noticed this morning quite a few little seedlings still coming up so maybe all is not lost.

bird bath

Our birdbath is so popular right now with the robins, sparrows and chickadees, I've decided everyone with kids should have a birdbath in their yard, preferably one that can be seen from an often-used area of the house!  We've been really enjoying sitting in the sun room and watching the birds, especially the big fat robins, splash around (but I'm not a patient photographer, when I went to take a picture, this little guy was the only one willing to pose).

Starting in early May the robins have been putting on a show including mating dances, male territorial wars, berry eating (Mountain Ash tree), worm pecking and gathering old leaves for making their nests.  The whole family loves to watch them.

If you have a bird bath, keep it clean and top it up every day.

Kids' Gardening Party

I found these ideas from an article in Calgary's Child by Tami Oudendijk of funinaboxcanada.com.  I am so doing this when my daughter gets older...

Invitation

• send a mystery package of seeds to each guest with time, date, rsvp etc. written on it
• guests win a prize at the party for guessing which type of seed it is (keep a list in case they forget to bring them)
• mention that they should wear something they don't mind getting dirty

Venue

• use a large plastic table cloth in your home, go outside, or rent the community centre
• give everyone a container to work in (big enough for their pot and soil)

Menu

• theme-related snacks: trail mix with seeds (sunflower, pumpkin); gummy worms/bugs; finger foods served in flower pots and juice poured from a watering can (if it is food-safe)
• open-faced sandwhiches cut with a flower-shaped cookie cutter and spread with different colours of cream cheese

Decor

• fresh cut flowers or potted plants, of course!
• blue streamers for the sky and yellow ballons for the sun
• mini flowerpots to hold cutlery and napkins

Activities

• supply terra cotta pots and paints
• if using water-based paints, have an adult spray varnish to seal them once dry
• supply soil and a flower or vegetable plant or seed to plant (did you know pansies can be put outside in mid-April in Calgary?)

Cake

• cupcakes decorated like flowers and arranged on a tray to look like a cake, with green shoestring licorice for stems, or
• flower, watering can or flowerpot-shaped cake, or
• dirty and worms cake (chocolate cake with chocolate cookie crumbs and gummy worms)

Loot bags

• child's gardening set with a watering can, or
• gardening tools, gloves and a package or seeds, or
• journal with a ruler and pen to keep track of watering and growth of their plant

Easter idea

Don't like to give your kids too much candy for easter?  I have those plastic eggs that split in half - but what's small enough to fit in them that's not just junk??  How about some seeds?  And you can also get some peat pellets that expand when you put them in water - interesting for the kids and easy for little hands (or even new gardeners) to use.  You can find seeds and pellets anywhere that carries garden supplies at this time of year. 

Scroll down for seed suggestions on a previous post.

plants for the senses

Getting kids into the garden is important for their health and ultimately, I believe, for the health of the planet.  If you do nothing else in your yard, plant a few fun and interesting plants for kids (adults will like them, too)!

touch: lamb's ears, ornamental grasses, woolly thyme, echinacea, celosia, snapdragons

smell: mint and any other herb for that matter, scented pelargoniums, chocolate cosmos, heliotrope

sight: giant sunflowers, ornamental artichokes and kale, chinese lantern, bleeding hearts, cosmos and zinnia

taste: the choices are endless but bite-sized, easy-to-pick varieties are especially great for kids: strawberries, saskatoons, raspberries, cherry tomatoes, peas and beans

weird colour: purple carrots and beans, rainbow chard, heirloom tomatoes

seeds for kids

Let the kids learn a little about nature and nurture by letting them plant a few seeds.  Set aside a spot in the garden exclusively for them, or, if space is at a premium, give them a pot or two.  Here are some seed suggestions for plants with easy-to-handle, fast-growing seeds:

• sunflowers
• nasturtiums
• sweet peas
• cosmos
• peas and beans (any kind of edible, watch out-castor beans are poisonous)

planning for a pond

When the kids are a little older, I'd like to have a little pond in the backyard.  I know exactly where I want it to go.

Recently, I decided that this year I would put a pathway through the large, sloped perennial bed so that the kids could meander (or more likely, play chase) through the garden.  Then I suddenly realized that I could make the pathway now with wood chips or gravel mulch, and then easily turn it into a waterfall for my pond later!  More enjoyment now, less work later.

If you're worried about safety with kids and a pond, pondless waterfalls are a trendy and easy alternative.

mosaic path

I like to collect small, interesting rocks and seashells from the places I've been (the only reason they're small is so that I can still carry my suitcase).  I had them in artfully arranged little collections around the garden.  Of couse, my kids are unavoidably attracted to them and spend time moving them around the garden.  I want them to enjoy the rocks too, but I don't want the rocks to get lost.  And I kind of like keeping them all together.

My solution?  This year I'm making a little concrete cobble-stone path with a mold I got from Lee Valley.  I'm going to arrange my stones and seashells in the pathway in a mosaic fashion.  Voila!  A permanent, kid-friendly display.  I'm going to have the kids make hand- and footprints in some of the stones too.