2024-05-08 15:52:53
Get to the young vegetables
Where and how does lettuce grow, on trees, in the supermarket? Yikes, he even has roots. Some children have only become aware of this since salads with roots have been available in retail stores. So it’s high time to plant something yourself. Tomatoes are popular, but are only of limited use as starter plants because they are demanding and don’t like rain, wind and drought. If parents assist with cultivation, this will also work without brown rot. The plants are only allowed to go out from mid-May, when there are no more frost nights.
What’s easier: sow carrots, parsnips, sugar peas and cucumbers. Egg cartons can be used as seed pots, so it’s better to invest in good potting soil. Radishes, which can be harvested after just four weeks, are justifiably popular. Zucchini and lettuce, such as the robust rocket, prove to be good plants for beginners. Place seedlings in small hollows, mound soil around them and water. Wurzelwerk provides lots of good tips, behind which lies the humorous website of Marie Diederich, an enthusiastic young woman who shares her practical knowledge, from pepper cultivation to biological snail defense.
What impatient people
Patience may be one of the biggest challenges facing child gardeners. But the grass doesn’t grow faster if you pull it. To bridge the waiting time until the harvest, it’s worth taking a detour to a dog-free meadow: tender dandelion leaves make a spicy salad and are also delicious mixed with potatoes. Or try so-called recovering. What sounds so fashionable simply means getting vegetable residues with roots to sprout again: For example, cut off the root end of spring onions with about three centimeters of green and place it in a glass of water; it will grow again.
Rise of the potato
Plants are subject to fashion, and this is where the tuber comes into play, making a career for itself as a balcony vegetable. Potatoes can be grown quite easily in planting bags or large pots, and this even works in the apartment. Due to Sieglinde’s triumph, many Internet articles provide information about the right soil. The principle is simple: dig in pre-germinated potatoes (they will germinate within a few weeks in a bright, cool place) and wait until something sprouts. The names alone arouse anticipation, whether Annabelle, the Blue Anneliese or the Pink Pine Cone will be sunk.
This text comes from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
Small herbal parade
Herbs are uncomplicated and make every meal special. While chives grow quickly, parsley takes more time. If you make sure to water sage, rosemary and thyme sparingly and grow mint plants in pots and prevent them from growing, you will be able to harvest abundantly. Herb pots also look good on the windowsill.
Fruit to snack on
Of course strawberries are in demand, unfortunately also by pests. Children also love currants, raspberries and blackberries, which can easily be propagated from cuttings. Simply ask experienced allotment gardeners. To do this, cut off a branch without leaves and stick it into the loosened soil; roots develop as the leaves emerge.
What’s in store for us?
Geraniums are magnificent, but bees don’t really enjoy them. If you want to do something good for bees and insects, you can plant lantana, for example, which changes its flower color depending on the season. Verbena exudes a spicy scent, while vanilla flowers have a sweeter scent. The snapdragon is an eye-catcher – when gently pressed, the flower opens like a mouth. And the Carpathian bellflower thrives as a houseplant.
Sunflowers, which can be placed on the windowsill, are rightly a classic. The robust lavender is always a feast for the eyes: if you dry the flowers, you can have them all year round; Cut back boldly, then it won’t become woody and sprout again. Quickly climbing nasturtiums, which are now not only available in rich orange, but also in elegant purple-red and which score points with edible flowers, provide a touch of cottage garden charm. Daisies are also edible, harvested “pee-free” of course.
Water march
A critical word about watering. Small children quickly become intoxicated with water and initially mean all too well. But a vegetable patch is not a swamp. Therefore, water in the morning or evening and always hold the hose close to the roots. Not all blessings come from above, when the sun hits wet leaves it has a magnifying glass effect. This is already evident with basil: place the herb pot in a deep plate and pour in some water; the plant gets the water from below and doesn’t carbonize at the top. By the way: Every few days, dab house leaf plants with a damp cloth and gently remove dust. Ferns love spray from a bottle or a gentle shower bath. Children like to take part in such activities.
Wildflower meadows not only look pretty, they also attract many insects.dpa
Where is planted?
No balcony without a raised bed. They actually have advantages; they are available – depending on your taste and budget – in small plastic versions, with wood or metal casing. They are – relatively – snail-proof and offer a field for experimentation, especially for children. There are countless YouTube videos on how to build one yourself. The advantage of the raised bed: The earth warms up quickly and the plants grow faster. At least as nice: Mark out a plot of land in the garden as a small kindergarten.
Now to the pots: Clay pots are nice to look at, but unfortunately not quite as practical as their unsightly plastic pots, which, however, do not allow the soil to dry out as quickly and do not burst in sub-zero temperatures. What makes children happy: Beautifying the plastic parts with weatherproof paint can be done with simple dot patterns or simple mandalas.
Experiment on lawn
The quiet hum of lawnmowers is part of the evening sound of well-tended gardens. If you like English lawns, you have to do it once a week, but this area seems to be ecologically dead. It’s high time for a little experiment. Circle off a small area together, stop mowing from now on and observe which plants take over the piece. If you’re afraid of too much Gundermann and Giersch, sow a wildflower mixture, which, however, requires initial care. Also nice: plant catnip, cranesbill and meadow sage at a large distance and then watch what growth spreads between them. Such a wild patch of grass is so quickly taken over by insects and butterflies that you can’t even see it that quickly.
Gardening without a garden
This is also possible, and goes beyond the usual cress bed. As a reminder: Soak cotton wool generously with water on a deep plate, spread cress seeds and place in a sunny place. Generations of children have enjoyed the cress hedgehog. To do this, fill a discarded sock or stocking with soil, shape it into a semicircle, if you like it, mark the eyes and nose with buttons on the front, then sprinkle the back with cress seeds, sprinkle water on it and see how green spines appear. After a few days, cress will sprout. Cut them off with scissors and put them on quark bread or in a salad.
Another tip that brings joy: grow houseplants yourself. Check with friends and relatives to see what’s growing and ask for offshoots. For example, after a spider plant that produces lush offshoots that are snapped off, fill a small glass with three finger widths of water. Roots sprout quickly. Then put the plant in soil.
Particularly popular with youngsters: cress, which grows quickly and can be eatenplainpicture/Frank Baquet
Fairy tale and glass garden
Create a small fairy or dinosaur garden in a clay bowl. Get a bowl with a drainage hole; grave bowls are well suited. Now fill in a layer of expanded clay, but it is also sufficient to cover the hole with a flat pebble or a piece of clay. Add a layer of good topsoil and take two or three small plants, a small fern, mini ivy, an African violet – despised as grandma plants for decades, they are available again. Now make a path out of small stones or branches, place a wooden house on it and one or two favorite characters from the toy box.
A bottle garden thrives in a large mason jar or candy jar. It was modern in the 1970s and is now again after being rediscovered during the pandemic. Plant ivy, coffee plants, wicker martens in a bed of earth and stones. This requires some skill and discarded forks. With the lid, the jars represent a small ecosystem with a water cycle. The heat causes the plants to sweat, their water condenses on the wall and seeps into the ground drop by drop. A water garden is a great eye-catcher. To do this, take a large glass vessel – volume of at least 1.5 liters – pour in some soil and carefully place a water plant, cover with stones and slowly fill in water. Waterweed, ruby ludwigia or sickle moss look magical provided they are not in the blazing sun and a third of the water is changed every few weeks.
Garden for testing
Writing about garden dreams in allotments seems about as timely as writing about the return of the sweater vest as a fashionable hipster quote. Young families have long been registered on waiting lists for garden happiness on the outskirts of the city. But it doesn’t have to be a large plot of land. If you want to try out whether gardening – even in dry times with a lot of water hauling – is something for you, it’s better to rent a small strip of fields. The Federal Center for Nutrition provides good information about rental fields and self-harvest gardens (www.bzfe.de). Farmers stake out small pieces, rent them out seasonally, and provide beginners with advice and often seedlings and holiday replacements. This is a good place to start. And it doesn’t oblige you to do anything if the older children are only more enthusiastic about hanging out under the pear tree.
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