The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Build a ladybug house

Jun 1, 2010 aphids, cheap, kids, ladybugs

With a piece of cedar fence board and a few nails you can make your own ladybug house to give your army of aphid eaters I nice comfortable place to take shelter between battles

This project started with my youngest daughter (5 years old) has been asking every weekend, “Can we build something with wood?”  Finally I came up with this project which we had a great time building.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: aphids, little green bugs

Science Fair – Will smaller seeds sprout faster?

May 29, 2010 kids, science fair

This site was practically started because of my oldest daughters science fair project Why Don’t Strawberries Grow in the Wintertime?  Now with my youngest in kindergarten she was very excited to have a science fair project of her own, which should be pretty obvious from the picture above.

With no influence from me she decided on answering the question if smaller seeds will sprout faster.  These days science fairs are more than just gluing some some Styrofoam balls to a couple hangers and calling it good.  They require using true scientific methods and procedures, which is pretty advanced for a 5 year old, although she didn’t seem to notice.  Here is the contents of her experiment…

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: cheap, cilantro

Teaching children patience with gardening

Nov 19, 2009 germination, hydroponics, kids, seeds

It shouldn’t be a surprise that kids these days are not as patient as previous generations.  Personally I feel this is less on a change of parenting but a result of children’s expectations created because of the advance of technology.  For example, When my daughter asks to watch a particular show “On Demand” and then 5 minutes later asks me to “pause it” so she can go potty.  This makes me think back to the days of having a single TV station we could pick up with our antenna, which seemed to play reruns of MASH 24/7.

The great thing about gardening is with the exception of seed hybridization, synthetic fertilizers, and maybe techniques like hydroponics the hobby hasn’t changed too much in the past few hundred years.  It still takes 1-3 weeks for seeds to germinate not matter what technology you throw at them.  This is why I feel gardening is a great activity to share with the young ones in your life to help offset the instant gratification they see on a daily basis.

Here are a couple of ideas how to do this any time of year:

Cup of Dirt: Give your young one a cup of dirt and some seeds.  To keep them interested give them a spray bottle to water everyday to keep them coming back every day to check how their plant is doing.  The spray bottle will provide just enough water on the surface to allow the seeds to germinate and what kid doesn’t like to play with a spray bottle.

Sprouting in a Jar: I have a complete post on this topic, but the process is pretty simple.  Get a mason jar and add some seeds.  Rinse, drain and repeat.  In just a few weeks you will have tasty and healthy sprouts you can add to your salads, sandwiches, stir-frys, etc.

Growing plants in water:  Now this can be as complicated as setting up a hydroponic environment or as simple as taking a spider plant start and placing it in some water and letting your young one watch as the roots develop and transplant and care for it as a new plant.

Tags: cheap, garden seeds, outdoor plants, vegetables

Big events this week

Aug 15, 2009 kids, sunflowers

My four five year old has been patiently been waiting for the “color sunflower” she planted from seed at a friends house this spring to finally bloom.  Every morning she will run to the kitchen window and check on its progress.  It turns out the sunflower was waiting to share her blooms on my daughter’s birthday which was definitely one of her favorite presents that day.

Here she is posing with her flower (still in pajamas)

Tags: garden seeds, outdoor plants

Growing sprouts in a Mason jar

Jul 8, 2009 cheap, kids, sprouting

My daughter was required to do a presentation which included an experiment using plants for school and of course her mother directed her to me.  Given there was not a lot of time until the presentation I suggested that she grows sprouts, given you can go from seeds to a jar full of sprouts in less than a week.

Construction

You really can grow sprouts in almost anything.  We chose a mason jar, though plastic storage containers, trays, or even fabric bags (just drip in water and hang)

The important thing is to provide plenty of airflow, if you don’t your seeds will produce an awful stank that you won’t want in your house let alone eat.  We used a piece of an old pair of leggings, which we stretched over the opening of the jar and applied the mason jar ring….well that’s about it.

How to Grow Sprouts

The process starts with seed selection.  You can grow any seed as a sprout though you may not want to eat them.  Cilantro is a good example it will grow great but the root of a cilantro/yellow mustard sprouts are very potent so use with cooking, not raw.  Some good suggestions are alfalfa, broccoli, buckwheat, cabbage, chickpea, garlic, lentil, oats, yellow mustard, peas, onion, radish, sunflower, fennel, arugula, pink kale, fenugreek, wheat, or wheatgrass.  In our case my daughter wanted to determine how quickly and big seeds grew depending on the initial size, so I gave her a several different types of seeds for her experiment.

Take about a tablespoon of seeds and soak in room temperature water with a couple drops of liquid fertilizer overnight.

In the morning drain, rinse and let sit out of direct sunlight.  Repeat the drain/rinse process once a day (twice a day if your sprouts begin to smell)  During the first couple days it is advisable to shake and/or roll the jar on its side to allow the seeds to spread out a little.  Doing this simple procedure within about a week you should have a jar full of fresh healthy sprouts.

Why grow sprouts?

Fun: Great for kids with limited attention spans.  Within a day or two they can see their seeds sprout growing more and more each day.  It is also a great way to keep your sanity during those long winter months.

Cheap: For mere pennies you can grow pounds of greens.

Nutritious: These little sprouts pack a ton of nutrients for their little size.

Easy: The process is pretty fool proof, just rinse with water, set them on your counter, and eat.  What could be easier

Tags: cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, outdoor plants

Picking strawberries in the garden

Jun 21, 2009 kids, strawberries

In the past couple years we have grown strawberries the story has been my oldest daughter salivating over the strawberries asking, “Is it red enough yet?” 

This year her desire for strawberries is just as great though with the plant maturing as well as the additional plant we propagated last year she has been easily getting her fill with plenty more ripe strawberries on the plants.  Not wanted to be wasteful, we went out and picked all of the ripe strawberries. 

Not having enough to make something like jam or even some strawberry shortcake for the family we opted to make a strawberry milkshake.

Strawberry milkshake recipe

• handful of strawberries
• 2 scoops of ice cream
• milk

Directions: Add strawberries and ice cream to blender.  Blend adding milk until it has the consistency of…well…a milkshake.

Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables