Gardening
1

Filling The Trench Garden Bed

I always need another garden bed, but my goal this year is to work really hard on getting enough production from the garden that I can put away a decent amount of food. In the past, I have done some pickling, canning, and fermenting, but no large amount of food …

Building
6

Small Greenhouse Build

While drinking my coffee one morning, I realized that my tiny house was overrun by seedlings! To top it off, they weren’t getting enough sun. I had no choice, really, but I didn’t have the funding for a greenhouse. I did some scrounging and found and old roll of plastic …

Gardening

Seed Saving: Tomatoes

Once you pick a beautiful, ripe tomato and start munching away, the seeds will start falling out all over the place. They are slippery and slimy and make a big mess when you really are enjoying your fresh, juicy tomatoe. Clearly not hard to find seeds here. But what do …

Fermentation

Compost Tea

Compost tea is a simple way to make your own rich, all organic fertilizer for all of your garden. Here is how I make mine: I started with a bucket full of compost. I filled the bucket to the top with water. If I happen to have some dirty dish …

Gardening
2

DIY Seed Saving Packages

The summer here was on the rainy side.  This lead to many tomatoes rotting on the vine before I could get to them.  And the bugs got to their share as well.  I hate to waste all these tomatoes, but they are not edible. So I decided that I should …

Gardening

Harvesting Potatoes with Trucks

Time to harvest the potatoes from their tires.  The plants are dying off and turning brown, and the kids want the tires that the potatoes are in for a project.  We have a standard that we go by for the kids: if you want something, you have to work for …

Gardening

Teaching About Plants with Bean Sprouts

We got this great book about the life cycle of plants.  The book included an experiment growing seeds that we decided to try.  Anything that is an experiment, the kids get excited about.  So, off we went to plant some beans. Step1: Poke holes in the bottom 12 eggshells, or …

Gardening

DIY Plant Spacing Rulers

Beans are an excellent crop for kids to be able to plant.  Last year, I just gave them each a handful of beans and directed them to a garden bed.  We ended up with clumps of bean plants, which still grew, but we can do better this year. I decided …

Gardening

Transplanting Seedlings with Kids

After the kids helped me plant all the seeds in the seed pots and watched them grow, they continued to be excited about helping in the garden.  The idea of giving children tender transplants to put in the ground can make people nervous (myself included), but if they actually want …

Gardening
1

Free Resources to Teach Kids About Plants

We do our best to spend as much time as possible outside, especially after a long, cold winter.  However, on the really rainy days, you may just need something to do with the kids inside.  The links I listed below are full of plant worksheets and activities for the little …