Steve from Cambridge....Hi all

Hi
I'm a youngish 65 year old soon to retire aircraft engineer, always had a great interest in all things garden wise, my wife is a registered child minder so we have to watch what we can grow, but we like to get her children involved when we can and try plant things that attract bees and butterflies, I do also have Musa Bajo that gets over wintered and grows well over eight foot a year, anyway hello everyone and I look forward to reading posts and learning more from others .

Regards Steve

 

Hello Steve and welcome to the forums.

When entertaining children while working in the garden I would suggest a lot of beginners plants and those with spectacular effects.

Sunflowers come to mind, as they are easily grown and children love them. Also you can reuse the seeds over and over while doing something great for the wildlife.

Other plants to learn from are everything with a bulb, from garlic to tulips (nice work for the winter), scarlet runner beans as they are easy to handle or strawberries, raspberries (mind the thorns), currants or even (sweet) potatoes in a pot

 

Hi @steve (cambridge) and

When I was working in Childcare the children spent a large part of their day outside ,come rain or shine they just loved it!!

Sunflowers are always a guarantee !!

Fully appreciate how you have to be careful of what you grow.....OFSTED!!!!
They certainly don't miss a thing during their inspections!!!


I also got the children growing 'presents' for family members. This was often done from scratch and involved seed choice, sowing and nurturing.
Floral and edible gifts were grown.

There are endless opportunities to learn and have fun out in the garden.

They also grew a wild flower lawn by sowing a mix of grass and ( small ) wildflower seeds into a seed tray....this was then taken home by the children.Their interest was extended by asking them to keep a record of what insects visited their ' patch' throughout the summer.

Great fun to be had by all!

 

Hi Blackdog and thanks for the welcome....glad you mentioned Sunflowers I've just remembered that I have a packet of seeds somewhere that I need to dig out (no pun intended )

 

Yeah.... I had a lot of different variants in red and yellow. But the sudden burst of winter pretty much killed what was left after the slugs took their share...

 

Hello @steve (cambridge) and welcome to the forums

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner Steve.