Garden Fun

Spring is almost here! Break out the seeds, dust off your garden tools and get out in the yard! Kids love to play in the dirt and watch things grow. We've done some wonderfully fun activities over the years. I recently published an article on finding and using color in nature. Kids love to crush plant matter and color Easter eggs and paint art masterpieces! The article describes a bit about doing just that. We also love to garden and compost.

Two of my favorite books on gardening with children are:

Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Garedening Together with Children by Sharon Lovejoy

Learn and Play in the Garden: Games, Crafts and Activities for Children by Meg Herd

Last year we grew tomatoes, mint, cayenne peppers, chives, cilantro and our flowers. I have a particular love for roses! We made a simple salsa from the peppers and tomatoes. My youngest just loves tomatoes! Emeril has two cookbooks for children and in one of them there is a recipe for mint peas. My children love to cook the peas using mint from our garden. I wasn't so sure how it would turn out, but they ended up being quite tasty. We spent most of the late summer and fall figuring out the best way to dry the peppers and now have an abundance of crushed red pepper. My youngest son is on a quest to make hot sauce. We may attempt that this year. I tried to find easy instructions for preparing pepper mash, but was unsucessful! maybe this year......

Our tulips are starting to come up, our daffodils have bloomed and froze, our star magnolia tree has also bloomed and frozen! We've for crocus in bloom along with a few grape hyacinths blooming. I love spring. Not only do we celebrate Jesus' rising from the dead, we get to experience earth's renewal and we are able to experience God's love through His creation! There is no end to what you can do with the beauty around you-- we've made rose potpourri, handmade paper (I hope to post about this in the future) and all sorts of wonderful things from our garden.