More Gardening

Seed starting with kids

Activity
Seed Starting

Our seeds are planted now - getting them going was truly a juicy big learning activity. This is the first year I've really involved the kids (almost six and nine) in starting the garden.

The kids picked out what they wanted to plant, which led to rack-side conversations about why certain plants were or weren't a good bet. "Our yard doesn't get much sun," I explained, and both kids learned how to find the sun requirements on various brands of seed packets. "Those are hard to grow from seeds. OK, we can get that one, but look at the spacing. That will take up almost your whole garden space - is that what you want?" We talked about the "days to maturity" and figured out when we'd actually see a flower or pick a vegetable we planted that day. And all of us learned that when kids get a lot of different seeds to plant, the final tab can be a little daunting.

Then there was the actual planting. We had to find and follow the instructions for planting depth on each packet - good practice with measurement and estimation. The kids learned how to handle seeds of various sizes. They got some gardening know-how, such as watering from the bottom to avoid disturbing the seeds and keeping them warm by placing them on top of the fridge.

Now, a couple weeks later, many of our seeds have sprouted and it's very exciting. The morning glories are our most spectacular performers. They grow so fast that we're actually measuring their growth day to day with a ruler. The big learning continues...