CHENNAI: Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden”, writes a popular blogger Robert Brault.Gardening is the best way to connect children to Nature. It opens a window to seeing the world differently, with its many magical surprises. Designing a garden that is child-friendly will sustain their interest. Here are some top tips to make it so.
Select a small patch of the whole garden space for this garden. Here, they can do activities by themselves like digging, sowing, watering and weeding. Take care of their safety. Avoid using the materials which will hurt them while gardening.
The pots and the planters which are used in the garden can be painted with different colours and decorated with their favourite cartoon characters. This will make things more fun. Kids are curious about new things. The kids garden should have plants which grow fast. They will be thrilled to see the sprouting and emerging of a new leaf from a seed which was sown by them. Plucking a carrot from the soil and eating them with the fresh soil flavour will become their green childhood stories. They will enjoy the colours. Bright flowering plants would be a smart addition to their garden.
The child-friendly garden should have some interesting structures where the kids can play, learn and grow plants. It could be done in many creative ways. You could design an alphabet garden where the raised beds could be designed like an alphabet. Pizza gardens could be designed in a small circular patch of land where all the vegetables and the herbs which are used in pizzas could be grown. Beans can be grown in a spiral cage attached to the pot, making them more engaged with the plant by trailing it on the cage.
In case you have no space on the ground to have a child-friendly garden, don't worry. Make some interesting planters at home which gives them the happiness of growing food. Potato man, aqua onion are easy to make and perfectly fit your window sill garden at home. Here is how to make a potato man and aqua onion:
Take a big size potato. Cut the potato one inch from the top and scoop out all the flesh with a spoon or a knife. Leave a thick layer of flesh around the skin. Fill the potato with soil and sow some Ragi seeds on that. Sprinkle some water every day. Ragi will germinate within a week and grow like the hair of the potato. Draw a face on the potato with its green lush hair on the top. Wheat, paddy or any other cereal seeds could be used.
Aqua onions: Take a cup and fill with water. Keep an onion in that in such a way that the roots are touching the water. After a week new shoots will come from the onion. Engage your kids in watering and trimming the shoots.
The options are endless! So start to grow plants and nurture your kids in a greener world. For more information on urban farming or any other related queries contact the author at nalini@artyplantz.com.