Where Am I?

A pictorial post and a quiz for the summer.  This garden is in the heart of a large city in the UK.  Can you guess where it is?

It has a pond, a meadow and one of the cties busiest roads on its southern boundary

It is a real oasis in the heart of the city.  Well worth a visit.

The building in this last photo should identify it for you.  If you are not familiar with London it is the wildlife garden at the Natural History Museum.  When I took these photos a couple of weeks ago there were long queues for the museum, but only myself and two other couples in the garden.

Growing with Kids 1 - Radishes

Radish harvest

We are adding a few more veg to our repertoire this year.  Lots of kids gardening books suggest that one of the easiest vegetables to grow with kids are radishes and guess what they are right.  Our little bunch above were planted at the end of half term, in early June and have gone from plot to plate in less than five weeks.  That's fast growing.

They are of the globe variety, with a hot and quite fiery taste - a little bit too peppery for my son.  For me they brought back memories of my childhood with my family growing them and cutting crosses in the top to open them up into star shapes.  We also used to have great fun making vegetable faces with them and other vegetables.

They are ideal for taking on picnics.  Although they look good with leaves on we took them off of ours before storing to prevent goodness travelling up to the leaves.

We will definitely be sowing so more this summer though will take the advice from Love radish to sow a purple variety with a milder flavour perhaps more suited to younger children.

We have a sister site kidsinthegarden which has a wealth of information on growing vegetables with children.

Kids Garden Activities: Painting Pots, Bunches of Herbs and the Odd Decorated Pebble

Please note this blog has now moved to www.kidsinthegarden.co.uk.  This post can be found at http://kidsinthegarden.co.uk/kids-garden-activities-painting-pots-bunches-of-herbs-and-the-odd-decorated-pebble/.

 



Painted Pots using Star Stickers

Painting Garden Pots

If you are like me there are loads of activities you never get around to doing with children. Over the past week I’ve had the opportunity to test out a number of garden crafts without the kids, especially those involving paint.  Four weeks notice to stock and run a plant and produce stall for the school fair was not enough time to grow very much. We therefore decided to supplement the green produce on the stall with some home painted pots and stones.  I saw the advert for 100 free terracotta pots on freegle too late to grab them so it was off to Homebase to buy some.

Stencils on pot

A couple of class mums met one evening to stock the stall and have a couple of glasses of wine. I had diligently read up that to make the paint waterproof and weather proof . So we used 2 parts acrylic paint to one part PVC glue. Our experiences that evening taught us to let your creative juices flow and if they don’t use stencils. However the easiest method was placing stickers on the pot and rim. Large stickers that stuck really well worked best.  On the basis of the mess we created then if doing this with kids outdoors is probably advisable.  We had great fun and found it very therapeutic, hopefully something that will equally apply to children.

Painted Stones

All of the pots comments apply equally to painting pebbles. The smaller surface area and flatter configuration may well make them easier to paint. I loved the idea of painting a child’s name or initials on a stone.  Great for them to place on their plot.

Bunches of Herbs

If you have hardwood culinary herbs such as bay, rosemary and thyme already growing in your garden you can make good use of them.  This is a really easy kids activity. Depending on age, they can help to choose the herbs to cut, take off any decaying leaves and tie with pretty ribbons.  They can then be hung up to dry somewhere visible where the stages of drying can be observed.  Finally at a later date the kids can pick them for use in cooking.

So in future I won't be quite so daunted at having a go at the more messy garden crafts with my son.  I hope this account has also encouraged you.

More Green Space and Less Hard Surfaces in your Garden - WHY?

A recent report by the London Wildlife Trust on how London is losing its green gardens came up with some interesting facts.

• There are approx 3.8 million gardens in London (if you count front and back gardens separately) – Wow what a lot.
• 24% of London is domestic outdoor space with 14% of it vegetated. It is therefore really valuable green space.

As a result of garden design and maintenance since 1998/99 there has been a 12% drop in vegetation in gardens, hard surfaces have increased within gardens by 26% and areas of garden buildings by 55%. These are real losses as once an area is paved it is likely to be a long time, if ever, before it is removed.

The report got me thinking about how we transform our gardens to become more family friendly and suit the needs of our kids by adding paving, dens and outdoor offices. For front gardens car parking and more paving to ease maintenance are an increasing popular choice. Although planning permission is now needed if you wish to pave over your front garden unless the paving is permeable.

Our front garden



So how has our garden fared.  Are we helping this green decline?  In the back we have lifted a whole load of sleepers and created a vegetable bed (sorry edible garden – see previous post).  However we are extending the back of the house causing a 10ft loss of garden. So nil points here

In the front 2 years ago all the paving was lifted and a new garden created.  The idea was to create a low maintenance front garden full of plants.  The photo you see shows the garden now at the end of June having had no maintenance all year except for pruning of the dogwood.  So we are moving in the right direction here.

I reckon therefore our garden comes out neutral in terms of change, but more by accident then design - how does yours do?  I want our garden to attract wildlife and know that keeping it as vegetated as possible and planting insect attracting plants will help.  So from now on I will be monitoring it and checking on how we are doing.

The Language of Gardening that will get Children Growing

Crops in pots

Growing your own and getting the whole family involved in gardening has become cool over the last decade.

We no longer have vegetable plots, but edible gardens. Our flower gardens have gone vertical and our roofs have gone green. Kids at school no longer garden, but grow. Though we still have loads of school gardening clubs. Everyone wants a sought after allotment, but community gardens and land shares are now real alternatives. If you haven’t got a garden you can still take the one pot pledge.

The focus on growing food is highlighted by some lovely slogans. So we now have:-

• Ledge Veg
• Crops in Pots
• Plot to Plate
• Fork to Fork
• Welly to Belly

There’s bound to be more, so please add to the list by leaving a comment.


Vertical garden in an urban landscape


Our children attend Seedy Sunday and Sow and Grow events. For those who like a combative approach there is Guerrilla Gardening and Seed Bombs.

On a slightly more serious note we also have food security. A reason for growing your own food you will see more often raised on US gardening websites that those in the UK.  E Coli outbreaks, knowing where are food comes and dealing with food shortages may all well be issues are children have to deal with in the future.

However, for now, whether you garden or grow, they are all life skills for our kids. I love this new language of gardening.  Its great for our children to grow up with this new vocabulary.

Children's Gardens at RHS Chelsea

A Child's Garden in Wales

The Chelsea Flower Show must be one of the few UK flower shows that does not encourage children to attend.  I only saw one child visitor and two children behind a stand on the day I attended. Children's growing was highlighted in several gardens this year.

My favourite was A Child's Garden in Wales. A 1940s inspired garden created by Anthea Guthrie, with the teenage boys from special needs schools in Heronsbridge and Ysgol Bryn Castell Wales with whom she had been working with for two years.  Home made footballs and hobby horses, a rusted iron junk fence with umbrella spokes all feature.  No plastic toys in sight.  As the garden is set in 1947 most of it is given over to fruit and vegetables.  The few annuals children then would have grown are surprisingly similar to those children would have grown today, including Love in the Mist, Calendula, forget me nots and night scented stock. They are similar to the easy grow flowers seeds I use with my son.  Its great that the children researched the history of the garden

Calendula flowers amongst the vegetables

Another group of schools showcasing flower and food growing were to be found at the Miracle Growers Learning Journey garden.  If you look at their site  you'll see they had some royal visitors.

Radishes from the Learning Journey

The cut flower part of the garden highlighted 9 inner city schools in south east London where the children grew their own cut flowers and able to take a learning journey into plant care. The project recognised that many urban schools are surrounded by hard urban views with little foliage and flowers. It demonstrated that
even schools without land garden soil can grow in containers,

Similarly the fruit and veg part of the garden demonstrated how the children in schools throughout the country grew food without a vegetable patch using window sills and containers on hard landscaped areas. The photograph shows the large variety of radishes which were grown, a really easy plant for children to grow.

If you have a favourite Chelsea garden this year please let us know.  If you are growing food and flowers in your school please get in touch we'd love to hear from you.

Three Doors at RHS Chelsea that all Kids will Love

I visited the Chelsea Flower Show in London yesterday.  If you are in the UK you will know that the papers and television have been overflowing with reviews of it.  The show certainly lived up to expectations.  I arrived as the gates opened at 8.00am which allowed for a quiet first hour and enabled me to take photos without the crowds.

There is a fuller more meaty post to follow about what the show had to offer children's gardening.  What I often take away from garden shows are one or two details where I think, I could do that or that will work in my garden.  On that basis I'd like to share three images with you.  They will appeal to children of all ages.  The first is from the Fever-Tree's Tree House garden designed by Stephen Hall.  This had a beautiful low level tree house with the most enchanting door.  No child would be able to resist going through this.  It conjures up images of secret gardens and hidden worlds.  Just raising the house off the floor by one/two feet added to the interest.



Tree House Garden


Faces in the garden are a firm favourite of mine.  Carving a face in the door to this tree house such a simple and clever idea.  It could translate quite easily to a tall garden gate or even a fence.

Finally a 'dor' with a difference.  A sculpture of this minute dormouse rolled up asleep in a  nutshell was quite
exquisite.