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Fun flowers, fruit and veg to grow with your child
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There are so many fantastic fruit, veg and flowers out there
that you can grow with your child that we found it tough to narrow it
down to a chosen few!
However, the following should provide your garden, windowsill
or patio with brilliant colour, heaven-sent scents and yummy fruit and
veggies to tuck into in the summer months.
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Good for wildlife
It's always a great idea to pick plants that will bring nature right
to your doorstep. Children get endless hours of fun and interest watching
bees, birds, butterflies, ladybirds and other insects and animals in their
garden and the added bonus is that they help keep pesky pests away too
such as slugs and aphids. The following are an example of great wildlife-attracting
plants.
Sedum
- A perennial, that will come back year after year to provide late-summer
flowers.
- Attractive to butterflies in particular and the leaves are also interesting!
- Quite fast growing.
Lavender, rosemary, thyme and mint : 
- Grow easily, often love poor soil, and some keep their leaves all
year round, providing interest in dull winter months.
- Pretty, delicate flowers that attract insects in the summer and delicious
leaves that children will love to smell.
- Can be used either fresh or dried in cooking or to scent a room.
- Grow very quickly, particularly mint, and can overrun a garden. Be
warned!
Snapdragons
- Have loads of fantastic and brilliantly coloured flowers in the summer.
· Attract bees: listen to them humming inside of the flower as they
crawl in to get the pollen!
- Children can have fun picking the little flowers and seeing them 'snap'
like a dragon.
Excellent eating!
A good way to get your child interested in healthy eating is to grow
some fruit and veg yourself. While some things need a medium or large
garden (e.g. sweetcorn, courgettes, pumpkins and raspberries), others
can be grown without a garden at all.
 Cherry
tomatoes
- Work wonderfully in hanging baskets or in tall pots: often better
than in the ground! Choose a trailing variety if possible and have some
fun.
- The bright red colour and little size make them irresistible to snack
on.
- The leaves on the plant smell and look interesting too.
Strawberries
- Can be grown in the garden or in pots.
- Provide nutritional fun: kids just love picking them and eating them
on the spot!
- There are many varieties to choose from, so feel free to experiment!
 Carrots,
potatoes, sweet peppers and aubergines
- All of these work well in pots, particularly aubergines and peppers.
- Are fun for children to pick, especially carrots, as children can
wonder at the size and shape before they pull them up!
- Taste amazingly better than anything you'll buy in the shops.
Sweetcorn
- A medium to large garden is needed for this as the plants take a
fair amount of room and only produce one or two heads of corn each.
- Children will love watching the plants grow taller, and seeing them
go golden at the end of the summer.
- Picking the corn and taking off its outer leaves will be exciting,
and eating it even better: nothing beats home-grown corn!
Games and fun
Gardening generally is fun for children as they're outdoors, getting
dirty and playing with water. However, you can easily add an element of
competition to things to make gardening that little bit more thrilling!
Sunflowers
- Children love sunflowers for their bright and cheery colour and the
massive size some varieties will grow to!
- The seeds provide a tasty and nutritional snack once the plant has
gone over: roast them in the oven till golden with a bit of oil and
salt.
- A great game is to grow a sunflower for each member of the family
either in pots or in the garden and see whose grows the tallest at the
end of the summer!
Pumpkins,
courgettes and other squashes and marrows
- Need a medium to large garden as plants spread like mad!
- All come in a range of strange sizes, shapes and colours and they
taste delicious too.
- After enjoying some of the vegetables from the plant, you can always
leave one on to see how large it can get!
- Pumpkins are also fab to grow for Hallowe'en.
Climbers
Climbers provide a different sort of interest to children. Since many
plants grow along the ground or slightly upwards, kids find it fascinating
to see how tall a climber can grow, and how it wraps around anything in
its path.
You don't need lots of space either. Climbing or trailing sweet peas,
for example, can be grown up a tepee or trellis shape in a pot, providing
a wall of colour and a lovely, delicate scent. Runner and French beans
can also be grown in this way, providing pretty flowers and delicious
beans in the summer.
If you have garden space, clematis grow easily and well on a
trellis or against a wall, as do passionflowers. These are particularly
interesting for little ones as the flowers are amazingly intricate up
close (they also attract birds and insects) and, after they have gone
over, soft orange fruits take their place.
The fruit is supposed to be edible but we haven't tried one yet!
 Spring
colour
After the long, dark months of winter, spring flowers can provide a real
boost. Many are attractive to children too as they tend to be vividly
coloured and smell divine. The most common are tulips, daffodils (narcissi),
crocus and hyacinths and can be grown equally in pots and in the garden.
Planting the bulbs in early winter is something your children will have
fun doing with you but take care with daffodils particularly as the bulbs
and flowers are poisonous. Wearing gloves while handling the bulb and
washing hands directly afterwards should be fine.
You can expect to see growth around March (or before if it's been particularly
mild) in both pots and the garden.
General growing tips
All the plants mentioned above, apart from the spring flowers, follow the
same planting guidelines.
- Generally plants can be grown from seed indoors from March onwards.
- You will need to plant them into little pots or propagators for several
weeks or a couple of months until seedlings appear and outgrow their
current space.
- Either transplant them into a larger pot or into the garden, either
following the instructions on your packet or your planting preference.
- Most seeds can be planted directly into the garden once the weather
is warm enough and the risk of hard frosts has passed.
- Most plants can be bought as seedlings from garden centres or supermarkets
if you don't want to faff around with transporting seeds! It is interesting
though for children to see how a seed develops into a plant, although
for littler ones, the time it takes might make them forget all about
it!
- Garden herbs are normally best grown from young plants that you can
buy cheaply from garden centres and supermarkets.
- Spring flowers and plants are normally planted as bulbs in the early
winter (October-November) either directly into the ground or into a
pot.
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