Veggy Garden For Kids

dougchips

Great rainy day project, planting seeds in starter kits. Went to the home creapo with my older(5year) daughter and bought these starter kits that have a dirt pellet that blows up when you add water. I let her pick out the seeds (corn, carrots, peas, sunflower, watermelon, and a few others). Each seed tray has 72 little areas, 720 seeds later our project is done.

In a month she can have fun planting 720 little plants! I can have fun all summer weeding and watering.

A couple questions:

#1, How far apart do you plant stuff? At a plant a square foot, there goes my entire back yard.

#2, If I use an auger that is meant for planting bulbs will it work or do I still need to rototill the soil?

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bill r

I'd go with 8x8 or 10x10 for a 5 year old. You can do it with a shovel in 1 sweaty hour. Mound up the carrots so they won't rot. The only one you mentioned that takes any space is watermelon. Planted on the edge, it can run out over the lawn. It'll make a mess, but easy to correct in the fall with the mower. Beware of chemicals like weedkiller, termite treatment, etc. We do it with tomatoes every year, Pine straw or grass-seeding-straw is useful. Consider growing heights when arranging. Water water water when new. Y'all in for some fun. Strawberries and tomatoes are fun.
PS Strawberry is perennial- don't know if you can get much fruit in one season. A few peanuts would be fun for the kids. They want sand. Dry them in the sun (and don't let the dog eat them)

By the way, all the species you mentioned are generally planted into their permanent site as seeds down here, although I don't know of any probelm with transplanting them as you mentioned (you have a shorter season).

The kids will carry these experiences with them forever -- neato Dad

dougchips

Bill, I was looking at the strawberry plants, do they all creep along the ground or do they have any that grow like bushes?

How do peanuts grow? I always thought they were a tree.

My reason for starting early is that I want to get another batch going in a month to stagger my harvest.

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bill r

The strawberry will make a single plant the size of, well, a toaster. Later it might send a ground chute off to the side about a foot to start another. The peanut plant will be larger, maybe the size of, well, a microwave or somewhere between. The peanut grows on the roots beneath the soil -- hence the sand. Sand is really good whenever you have to dig the harvest up sweet potato, irish potato, carrot. I would not be scared to use mason or concrete sand, but ask the supplier if any chems have been added to be sure. Also, anything in the ground should be in mounds or 'hills' to keep them from being too wet and make harvesting easier. You aren't early at all. You just gotta watch for frost. If the man calls for frost (next 2 weeks or so) cover the seedlings with newspaper or such overnite. also sunflower:6ftplus;corn same; the rest 6"-2'. Lots of fun. Tomato 3-4 feet bushy. If you have trouble finding peanut locally, there's a little place here; I'll dig up their number if needed. I thinks it's Jamestown Feed and Seed. Probably will have peanut seeds. Peppers are fun too. BTW, FULL SUN, ALL.

dougchips

We took the seeds from a red pepper and dried them out and then placed them in a wet wash cloth for the last two weeks. Almost all of them germinated (way to many).

I googled the peanut thing, it looks like some stores sell them. With up to a 150 day harvest, I will have to decide soon.

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Teetorbilt

Gardening is a great thing for kids, a return for labor spent.

Definitely go for raised beds or hills. Not mentioned is that it allows for extra air to the roots.

Plant stuff that you like, kids really don't care if it's tomatoes or zucchini, they just like results. Also buy a seal-a-meal and they can taste their rewards after it snows over.

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Bone Saw

cudzu is really fun for the kids, mabey teetor can offer more on it

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Teetorbilt

Cudzu grows fast, really fast, up to 3' a day. You can fry and eat the leaves though.

!!!!!! This is an invasive species from Africa originally brought in for erosion control and has gone totally haywire where the conditions are right. DO NOT promote the growth of this plant!

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You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

bill r

Take one irish potato, look for the 'eyes', cut it so that each eye has some potato with it. These segments are 'seeds'. Place 1-2 inches in sandy mixture. Place eye upwards. Sweet potoato same. They're great fun to harvest. Space needed 2 sq ft

Spacing. These make a low ground-running vine. They are easy to direct, can be 'spiraled' etc., but do need a little more real estate: watermelon, cantelope, sweet potato, cucumber, zuccini?, some 'pole' beans( can be trained up the corn stalks) what other space problems guys?

Obviously, you can do a lot on the deck, in containers. Much harder to control moisture and excessive heat, however. The ground is best. You should probly Google termite protection considerations if you're near a building.

Teetorbilt

Burpee has a Blue Lake bush bean that also continues to bear if you keep pickin'. I forget the number, 141, 147 ?????

Here it is. http://www.burpee.com/shopping/produ...&iSubSubCat=43

__________________
You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

dougchips

Teetor, we did 70 or 140 bean seeds already. Now I have to get the "Jack and The Bean Stock" book for my daughter.

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