Fun in the Garden this Spring!

Getting your children outdoors might not be a problem, but here are some ideas to keep them entertained outside this Spring...

Set up a wildlife trail.  Birds are getting ready to nest - paint a nesting box and nail it up somewhere out of the way of cats and footballs.  Insects will be busy - inspect piles of logs or bricks and behind ivy.  Toads also like these damp, quiet areas.  Or make a wormery by layering sand, soil, worms and kitchen waste and keep it dark.

Paint some stones and mark out an area that could be used for a vegetable or flower patch - or a gnome battlefield for those less horticulturally minded!  It's amazing how quickly seeds will sprout - salad will only take a few weeks from sowing your seeds to harvesting tasty green leaves.  Baby carrots, mengetout, new potatoes and sweetcorn are easy things to get started with, and nasturtiums, morning glory, poppies and marigolds are excellent - if clashing - beginner flowers.  You can use almost any container (pierce some drainage holes first) to grow vegetables and flowers in - buckets, ice cream tubs, even old shoes or boots, and eating the resulting produce is hugely satisfying.

Older children could make a small pond from a bucket or a planter without holes in the bottom.  Put some stones around the edges to make a shallower area, fill with water and add some plants such as an osygenator like Hornwort, and a pygmy waterlily or Iris Laevigata, which are all suitable for even the smallest still water pool.

For the more artistic child, make a miniature Japanese garden using an upturned dustbin lid filled with sand or gravel which can be raked into interesting designs.  Add stones, sink a tiny pool out of a jamjar lid, add some moss and some interesting shaped twigs to make good substitute bonsai.

Make a tepee.  If you can find some long branches or bamboo poles, stick them upright into the ground, and tie their tops together with string.  Use thinner twigs or brances to weave between the uprights, and stuff the gaps with dead leaves or drape a blanket over the top.

Make a garden scrapbook or diary.  Take photos of the bare earth you've just planted, then when your seeds have grown you can compare the pictures.  Press flowers in a flowerpress or in some newspaper in a heavy book.

Whether it's football or fairy hunting, mud pies or mud wrestling, there's lots to keep you entertained outside.  It's health, it's fun, and it's - for the most part - free!

Article written for Spring 2009 issue by Annabel Foster of www.good-earth.co.uk