Tiny Gardeners
It seems like a strange time to be planting, but this is absolutely the time to be thinking about those beautiful spring and early summer flowers.
And there’s nothing more fabulous than seeing your little one's cute squidgy fingers pushing seeds into the soil.
Sunflowers are great as their seeds are big enough for those tiny fingers to grasp. They are also rewarding, sprouting within a week or two and growing taller (depending on the variety) than the small children in your life.
You can buy recycled cardboard planters at your local garden centre, hardware store, or sometimes even the supermarket. Or - you can use toilet rolls or egg cartons, that can then be planted straight into the garden, once your flower seedling gains some size.
Top tip - Snails are going to want to eat your tasty sunflower sprouts, so it’s often good to grow the seedlings on a gardening table or bench.
Find some children-sized tools - (I think spoons are perfect)
Provide a bucket of soil
Lay out a seed tray (or egg carton or toilet roll) &
Let your children work away at filling them.
Show them how pushing your finger in the soil creates a hole for a seed, and then give them a few pointers on dropping a seed into the indent they have created.
A gentle pat and a little sprinkle of water and you now have a tiny gardener on your hands.
After a few weeks, when the seedlings are starting to look a little bit ‘sturdy’, you might like to work together on planting them out in the garden.
You’ve engaged in the natural world together, done a little bit of fine motor skill development and sensory play, and you have possibly started a life-long love of gardening.
It can be hard to wait, and there might be heartbreaks, with seeds not germinating, birds turning them over or snails eating the shoots….. And yet, a few seeds might make it through and in about 10 weeks you’ll have some beautiful flowers to enjoy together.
Another option is growing a bunch of seedlings out and then providing a space in the garden for children to plant them out, creating their own ‘patch’ in the back/side/front yard.
A few more blog posts about gardening you might enjoy!
