Planting An Indoor Garden With your Kids
Planting an indoor garden with your children couldn’t be easier and indoor gardening with your children is super simple when the midwest cold weather keeps your from planting your graden outdoors. This super simple and sun activity for indoor gardening with your children can introduce your kiddo to gardening right in your kitchen inside your home.
Should you start your garden indoors due to colder climates? The answer is yes! Since we live in the Midwest, this is a bit of a requirement if we want a longer growing season. We like to get a head start on planting our veggies from seeds right in our home.
In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. ~ Margaret Atwood
Since we do live in the Midwest, the weather is always unpredictable. But spring is here and it is the perfect time to begin our garden indoors. Even though it may still be quite chilly outdoors or we may even have the threat of winter storm, all our seeds will be safe indoors.
Seed packets may not even be on shelves yet, so the best solution for my family is the Miracle-Gro® Gro-ables® 8ct Veggie and Herb Seed Pod® Kit. These little pods have the perfect amount of seeds that we will need all in its own little pod.
Growing veggies and herbs indoors can be extremely rewarding and a wonderful learning activity for your children. You might even be surprised at how many uses you will have for your own home grown herbs. My kiddos are super excited to get our garden started before school is even out this year!
Did you know that inside every seed is a tiny living thing? There is a baby plant inside the seed, fast asleep. Seeds are dormant until they gets what they needs to wake up. When the seed wakes up, it becomes a seedling. What do you think a seed needs to wake up? Well, there are only three things a seed needs: warmth, water and air. A seed really only needs these three things to wake up!
Planting An Indoor Garden
For our indoor garden this year we will not need to locate various containers for planting individual seeds or worry about having too many seeds or trying to save them for planting the next year. Everything we need is contained right in the Miracle-Gro® Gro-ables® pod. The Miracle-Gro® Gro-ables® pods are completely biodegradable, so we can place them right in the dirt.
Prepare the Soil
Preparing soil for an indoor garden is so much easier than preparing an entire garden outdoors. Using a bagged seed-starting or sterile potting mix is the best idea for prepping your indoor pots or containers. We were able to purchase potting mix that is specific to our needs. The potting mix is fully prepared for you and all you need is your container(s) to place the potting mix in and later your Miracle-Gro® Gro-ables® pods.
The girls were easily able to complete our indoor garden with minimal supervision from me. We shopped for a large indoor garden container and potting mix, filled up the container with potting mixand simply pushed the Miracle-Gro® Gro-ables® seed pods from our 8ct Veggie and Herb Seed Pod® Kit into the potting mix until the top of the pod were level with the potting mix's surface. Water and now we wait.
We located the perfect spot in our home for our indoor garden. When the pods are first planted, the only thing we need to worry about is heat. Thus the reason we are planting indoors because it is still chilly here in the Midwest. But once the seedlings break through, they need lots of light. The pods will do best in warmth.
What I love about the Miracle-Gro® Gro-ables® pods is my kids won't be able to over water and wash away the seed. The seed is protected in the pod and has the perfect amount of growing material and plant food right inside the biodegradable pod shell.
Use plants to bring life. ~ Douglas Wilson
Germination
Did you know that once water gets inside the seed it wakes up!? This starts a process called germination. Remember, seeds only need warmth, air and water to germinate. All the nutrients the seeds need for the first several days are packed right inside the seed. Guess what that nutrient is? SUGAR! Plants love sugar! Plants cannot live without sugar because it is their food.
After the first few days of soaking up the water, the seed inside the Miracle-Gro® Gro-ables® pod has the plant food right inside the Miracle-Gro® Gro-ables® pod for the new seedling, so it will continue to grow right inside the biodegradable pod!
The girls selected a great indoor container this year and we won't need to transplant any seedlings to larger container or the garden.
TIP: When the seedlings are 2-3 inches tall, you have the option of moving them into deeper containers or keeping them where they are.
After a few weeks, we expect our seedlings to be ready for some full sun outdoors. We just have to ensure that our windy Chicago days are well over 50 degrees, especially at night. We can slowly acclimate our indoor garden to outdoors by bringing our pots outdoors during the day and back indoors on the cold evenings. Once we are in full summer, we can move our indoor garden outdoors.
Miracle-Gro® Gro-ables® 8ct Veggie and Herb Seed Pod® Kit
We used the Miracle-Gro® Gro-ables® 8ct Veggie and Herb Seed Pod® Kit this year and it included: Basil, Sweet Pepper, Zucchini, Globe Tomato, Cilantro, Cucumber, Cherry Tomato and Spinach. We can't wait for fresh veggies . . . well, not really veggies, but fruit.
Did you know that anything that contains seeds is really considered a fruit?!This means that we are really growing a fruit and herb indoor garden! Many things that we would never think of as fruits, are, indeed, fruits! Just remember that everything that is a container for the seed is a fruit!
I grow plants for many reasons: to please my soul, to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for novelty, or for nostalgia, but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow. ~ David Hobson
How to Make an Indoor Garden
SUPPLIES:
Raised Bed Garden Container
Organic Raised Bed Soil/Potting Mix
Miracle-Gro® Gro-ables® 8ct Veggie and Herb Seed Pod® Kit