Easy, Creative, Windowsill Gardening for Kids
Giving Time - Teaching Skills for Life
Windowsill Gardening for Kids is a great way to get your kids active and learning away from the tv. Kids love to do activities
and gardening is an activity where kids can
see, smell, and taste the fruits of their work.
Windowsill gardening is a great
way to capitalise on space indoors, and allows a gardening experience for the kids even if you don't have a yard.
Even our very young kids can grow mustard and cress, the older kids can be more adventuress and try vegetables and herbs.
let your kids to be creative with the containers that they use, from recycle egg boxes to milk cartons and yoghurt pots.
your kids can learn about the value of recycling and the environment whilst having fun growing stuff.
Easy and Effective Garden in a Pie Dish
Try this with the kids. It's a really fun simple first garden. Our kids were amazed.
First take your chosen root vegetables.
Take a parsnip, beets, turnip and carrot.
Cut your chosen vegetables around half an inch from the top.
Keep about an inch of the leaf stem, cut the rest off.
Leave these tops to dry out for two days on a sunny windowsill.
Choose a shallow dish (a good one is a foil pie dish).
Make drainage holes in bottom of dish.
Add around two inches of potting soil and add your root vegetable tops.
Place on a sunny windowsill, keep soil moist.
In about two weeks new roots and leaves will start to appear.
Windowsill Plants
Why not try growing these plants for your windowsill gardening:
strawberries
Radishes
Herbs
A salad garden with lettuce, cherry tomatoes spring onions
Pansies
Dwarf cabbages
marigolds
peppers
Windowsill Gardening - Mustard and Cress Heads
You will need: Boiled eggs, mustard and cress seeds, cotton wool or paper towel, water.
Boil your eggs, cut off the top being careful not to crack the rest of the shell.
Eat the eggs leaving the inside clear of egg.
Draw a face onto the shells.
Fill three quarters of the egg shell with dampened cotton wool or paper towel.
Sprinkle on mustard and cress seeds.
You could fill one shell with mustard seeds and the other with cress seeds.
Place on a sunny windowsill, keep the cotton wool damp.
Next day you should see some white roots and shoots will follow quickly.
Your kids should be able to harvest these and taste them in about a week.
Mustard and cress have a slightly peppery taste and are good to eat in salads or egg sandwiches.
