[Gabz]

I only discovered this site this morning, but it is a topic I could talk about for hours. I was interviewed by a local newspaper last summer for a feature they were doing about coping with kids and summer vacation boredom and then wound up in a major discussion about it on the paper's blog/forum.

[Gabz]

Garden Ping!!!!!

Last week's thread including the typo in the title

I'm really running late getting this posted today, and I'm also getting ready to leave for a couple hours --- but I'll be BACK!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the article I originally wanted to post, but couldn't because of copyright.

[diamond6]

I have a gardening question!! My bay leaf tree has this funky fungus growing on it. They look like little white dots on the back of all of the leaves, then the top of the leaf gets this powdery like brown stuff on it.

What the heck is it!?

[metmom]

You just can’t get a kid who HATES bugs into gardening.

But she sure likes to eat what I plant.

[gardengirl]

great article, Gabz! Loved the one yest from blam about seed saving.

The easiest way to get kids interested in gardening is to let them follow you around. Some of my best childhood memories involve doing just that—following my gma around, playing with her tools, watching what she did, picking fresh raspberries/strawberries, mimicking.

Children are great imitators, and that’s how they learn. I shadowed my parents in the garden and rode the tractor with dad while he was plowing/harvesting.

The garden center where I work is across the ballfield from the elementary school. The kids love to come over here, and we love to have them. You can tell right away which ones like growing things! As soon as they step inside the greenhouse, it’s immediately apparent. It’s either—Man, it smells so good in here or—it stinks. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground!

Give the kids their own place to plant/tend and let them have at it. Dirt is one of the greatest inventions ever! There’s nothing like walking barefoot in a freshly plowed field, or just working your hands into the soil. My hubby still can’t understand why I refuse to wear gloves!

Just ask Diane! We get paid to play in the dirt all day and watch things grow! How cool is that?!

[chickpundit]

One fun idea is a sunflower fort: http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_structures_other/article/0,,HGTV_3639_3618592,00.html My kids and I tried one last year. I grew in the sunflowers in a separate container, and they helped me plant them all out. It didn't turn out quite like I had the hoped, but they sunflowers still turned out beautiful. We planted morning glory seeds to fill in the gaps. You're supposed to to tie strings across the tops of the sunflowers so the morning glories can make a roof. Well, not all of the morning glories sprouted, and those that did were victims of my husband's weed wacker :) He thought the MGs were weeds, and I forgot to tell him otherwise. It was still fun for my kids to watch the tremendous growth of the sunflowers. Here's a pic: Sorry, I don't know why my whole post is crowded like this. I'm probably doing something wrong picture-wise.

[Red_Devil 232]

I received the fig trees I had ordered yesterday afternoon and will be planting them today. The figs I will be planting are a Brown Turkey, Celestial and a Black Jack. I also received a Hood Pear tree as a Lagniappe? I did not order the pear tree.

I want to plant the figs in a line what kind of spacing should I use? I guess I will put the Hood pear tree in the same line. Does it need different spacing?

I looked up the the Hood Pear on the Internet and one article said it needed a pollinator. Other searches and articles did dot say anything about a pollinator. Does it need one and if so what would be the pollinator.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Children should only be used in the garden as LABOR. However, the trick is to make them think it’s FUN!

How’s that? ;)

[cyborg]

I think gardening is a fine thing for kids to do. Gardening is a physical AND spiritual activity.

[Oberon]

Hey, good news! I’ve got teeny little baby lettuces and cabbages popping up in the garden!

They took two weeks to germinate, probably due to the cold snap a week and a half ago... but now we’re on our way to salad.

[CJ Wolf]

Bookmarking for later read

[chickpundit]

Spring seems awfully far away today.

Ice has been coming down since early this morning, and will continue until this evening.

We’ll be staying in and playing games all day, so that should be fun. Hopefully our electricity stays on.

[SunkenCiv]

NK (I think it is) has those delightful seed packs with anthropomorphized veggies and flowers on the packet, oriented to kids. A big kid-sized straw hat is cheaper (and better for ‘em) than a video game unit. ;’)

[tubebender]

I just remembered what happened to my wife in 19996 when she started watching our 6 year old grandson and he switched all the labels on about 50 flats of annual seeds in the greenhouse. She had to wait until they came up to identify most of them and some of them she had to wait until they matured. We still laugh about when we get together...