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Author: Marcus Bridgewater

Gardening with Kids: Fun Projects to Spark a Love of Nature

Posted on by Marcus Bridgewater

Learning to Garden with Grandma

Some of my dearest memories are from my grandmother’s garden in Florida. She taught me key lessons in plant care, like watering the roots when it’s hot outside because that’s where the plant needs the water most. 

The time spent outside during those formative years instilled in me a keen interest in plants and ideas of how I could help them grow. I wasn’t a dedicated gardener as a boy; no, I often did my chores in the garden in order to return to playing or climbing trees. But, I learned about the sweetness of hibiscus stems and how a flower turns into fruit, and respected the gifts the land gave us. 

My son is between infant and toddler, so I haven’t started gardening with him yet, but I see the wonder on his face when we walk into the backyard. The colors, smells, and fresh air engage him in a way the indoors can’t compete with. Once he’s over his “touch dirt and find out how it tastes” phase, we’ll try some more focused activities. If you want to engage your children in the garden, here are a few things I suggest.

Project 1: Delight their senses with herbs!

Herbs are fantastic plants to have in your garden. Their fragrant scents, unique tastes, and varying colors, shapes, and textures will intrigue your young ones while teaching them about the wonderful world of plants. 

This is a fun activity for you. Head to your local nursery, and have your child(ren) choose three different herbs. If you don’t already have a container, soil, and shovel, I suggest adding these to your purchase list. 

Plant the herbs together, and everyday watch them grow! Find ways to incorporate the herbs into your routine, like having your little one pluck mint to add to a fruit salad or basil leaves to garnish a dinner soup. This will help them build a relationship with plants and learn how they can enrich our everyday lives. And, because they planted the herbs (with you), they will feel a degree of pride to use “their” plants in your family meals. 

Project 2: Grow Flowers in Egg Cartons

For this activity, you will need an egg carton (or little cups that can hold ½ an egg’s worth of soil), flower seeds, and at least a cup of soil, but the amount of soil you use will depend on how many seeds you decide to start.

Follow the directions on the seed packet, and plant your seeds in the upcycled egg carton pods or cups! Your little one will love to see the seeds sprout and green grow above the surface of the soil. If your seeds don’t sprout, don’t give up, and use the opportunity to teach your child about the importance of trying again. 

There’s a magic in watching a seed grow into a plant! Keep the instructions on your seed packet close by, because you may need to transplant your flowers to a larger container when they reach a certain stage of growth. 

This activity will also teach your child how everyday household materials like egg cartons can be repurposed, which will grow an understanding of creativity and resourcefulness. 

Project 3: DIY Tea Blend!

This activity is garden-inspired, but it does not require you to grow anything yourself while still connecting your child with nature and plants. 

Acquire loose leaf dried peppermint, chamomile, and lemongrass. We recommend Mountain Rose Herbs because they are committed to high quality organic herbs, but these herbs are common and can often be found in local herb shops, and even in tea bags at the grocery store. 

Once you have your loose leaf herbs (if using tea bags because you don’t have access to loose leaf herbs, cut the bags open and add their content to a common container) you’re ready to go. Have your child smell the different herbs, and describe what they notice. Take a little bit from the jar and let them feel the plant matter (and add this to the compost/sprinkle outside after they have touched them), and talk about their observations.

After engaging with the herbs, it’s time for a tea blend! This can be done in bulk (creating a jar of tea blend) or for a single serving. 

Work with your child to decide how much of each herb you want in the blend, and add it in a consistent ratio to the jar/single serving. For example:

Example Blend 1

• 1 part peppermint

• 1 part lemongrass

• 1 part chamomile

Example Blend 2

• 1 part peppermint

• ½ part lemongrass

• 1 ½ parts chamomile

The combinations are endless! After you have put your blend together and gently mixed the plant matter around, it’s tea time! Boil two cups of water, and add your herbs. Let steep for at least 5 minutes, and strain into two cups. Add honey to taste, and enjoy this special blend you have created together. 

Please research all herbs and talk to your health provider before consuming.

Grow your relationship with the garden

Are you ready to get outside and put your hands in the dirt (or herbal plant matter) with your little one? Enjoy this special time with fresh air and good smells, and learn about the wonders of the garden together. 

Eco-Friendly Gardening: Sustainable Practices for Your Green Space

Posted on by Marcus Bridgewater

Take care of the planet while you garden

It doesn’t make sense to garden if we are not approaching the practice in a sustainable way. Why steward land if we are contributing to its demise at the same time? The good news is that it’s easy to be environmentally sustainable in the garden – and it often means being sustainable for your budget!

If you want to start a garden, it’s important you understand this: You don’t need to buy a million tools, gadgets, and accessories to get started. When I started my garden, I was limited in budget and time, but I didn’t let that stop me. I found ways to make my front and backyard flourish by using things I already had, and opening myself to my community’s resources. 

Using what you have

While traditional tools like a watering can and some planters are great, they are not necessities to growing your garden. I filter my drinking water with one of those two part pitchers; a section for the water on top, and the main jug that holds the filter + filtered water. The top of my filter broke a couple of years ago, so I lost a filtering system but gained a pitcher for my garden. It holds as much water as many watering cans, and gets water from the source to the plants!

You might be surprised at how many things can become a planter: Coffee mugs, drawers from dressers, jars, old trash cans. I often get asked about one of my compost bins (pictured below). It’s actually an old hamper that found a new purpose in my garden! I put a worm composter on top, and it’s a great place for old food to decay and worms to populate. Plus, seeds in the compost will germinate & grow through the holes in the hamper, and it’s fun to see what grows. 

Do you have any scrap wood and some power tools? If so, there’s no need to buy plant stands. Drill/cut a couple holes in a plastic planter, thread some kitchen twine through it, and now you have a DIY hanging planter. Old peanut butter jar? Perfect container for your propagations! Start seeds in egg cartons. Once you get started, you’ll see that the garden is a place for repurposing just about anything with a little creativity. 

Invest for the long run

When I do buy tools for my garden, I consider the price for the longevity of that tool. For example, a plastic watering can may be cheaper than a galvanized steel watering can, but the plastic watering can is more likely to break, and you’re more likely to spend money replacing it. 

This doesn’t mean you should throw away the plastic watering cans you already have, but when it’s time to buy a new tool, consider the one you won’t have to repurchase anytime soon. That will be good on both your wallet, and your environmental impact. Although quality materials are more expensive up front, their long-term durability can balance out the cost.

Where do your plants come from?

Plants can lead to… More plants! There are many environmental taxes to buying a plant from a store, for example: Let’s say you want to buy a canna bulb. In a very general overview, this needs to be grown at a nursery, planted in a plastic planter, sent to the store, and brought home by you. If the plant doesn’t look good at the store, it might not sell and get thrown away (even if it’s still alive). If the nursery can’t sell it to any vendors, there’s a high chance it will get thrown into a dumpster and burned (yes, burned).

I’m not saying it’s bad to shop at nurseries, but when we gardeners consider the plants we all have between us, it becomes clear that by sharing plants between us, we could eliminate a high degree of environmental waste (and save money!). I was given several bags worth of canna bulbs early into my gardening journey, and they took root in my garden, leading to many more canna bulbs (more than I anticipated, actually, which became a problem I had to solve). 

Between propagating, digging up plants that grow prolifically, and sharing seeds, we can increase the plant life around us while using less waste & energy. 

What we can learn from sustainable garden practices

We should be sustainable because it makes sense. The opposite of sustainability is rushing, cheating, and working for a short reward at the expense of long-term success. What good is short-term success if there’s nothing to look forward to later down the line? As you work toward achieving your goals in life, I encourage you to think about some of the themes discussed in this blog. 

Are you going the “cheaper” route, and more likely to have to stop to fix a problem (like a broken watering can) in the future?

Are you focused on durability, and choosing tools that will make it so you can reliably make progress on your goals for a long time?

Are you thinking about what you want your life to look like when you do achieve your goals, or just focused on achieving your goal even if it means everything else in your life has fallen apart?

Choose to be sustainable because it means you are working in a way that will avoid burnout, promote long-term success, and create ideal conditions for your goals to continue growing – both in your life, and in your garden. 

Plant-Based Diets: Growing Your Own Health Food

Posted on by Marcus Bridgewater

My experience with growing edibles

I have several major goals for my garden. One goal is to create a vibrant space I can enjoy along with local wildlife. That’s right – I welcome the possums, anoles, hummingbirds, bees, and even the pesky squirrels and mosquitos. Another goal is to foster a natural space full of plants growing together in harmony. Lastly, I like to grow plants I can consume. 

Growing fruits and vegetables enhances my diet and gardening experience, and the herbs I grow provide me with culinary and medicinal support. Right now, I have nectarines, peaches, blueberries, blackberries and grapes fruiting and flowering. This is the greatest harvest I have ever seen coming to fruition in my garden, and I am looking forward to eating some home grown fruit!

I have tomatoes and peppers growing, but it’s still early in the season for their harvest. Many of my herbs are flowering, like lavender and cilantro, and others are newly planted and taking root. 

Growing your own food is a wonderful way to connect with nature as well as eat fresh & nutritious food. In this blog, I will share some of the key lessons I have learned from growing food in my garden.

I grew this massive cucumber in my garden

The key lessons I’ve learned from growing food

One of the major lessons I learned is to be aware of what you can manage and what you can’t. Early in the season, it can be exciting to start hundreds of seeds or buy dozens of life plants and get them in our soil. But, the work doesn’t end there. Will you need to protect them from birds and squirrels? Will you be able to take the time to address an infestation if one develops? When it’s time to harvest, do you have the space required to process what you collect? Will you be prepared to eat or preserve what you grow? 

These questions might seem unnecessary, but I know many people who have let potential harvests go to waste because tending to the plants became too much between work and responsibilities. Some people simply forget about their edible food when they get busy! Growing nectarines sounds like a great idea, but you have to be faster than the squirrels! This year, I took time to wrap my ripening nectarines in mesh bags in hopes of keeping them out of reach from interested wildlife.

It’s important to know what will grow where you are. For example, people in northern Canada might be able to get a pineapple propagation to root in water, but it’s unlikely to grow to the point of producing fruit in that cold climate. It’s one thing to propagate the pineapple for fun, but if your goal is to truly grow your own fruit, you need to be deliberate with what you plant. 

I had a mature pineapple plant come to fruiting here in Texas, but since we started having annual freezes, the plants don’t do well here and none of my plants have made it that far. So, I grow pineapple plants because I like how they look, but not because I plan to enrich my diet with home grown pineapples. 

This is a pineapple top I propagated & rooted in water

We also must consider what our plants or trees need in order to fruit. For example, some trees and plants need a partner to produce fruit. Not everything is self-pollinating or able to produce on its own.

My recommendation to people who want to grow food is to visit their local nursery and talk to the staff. They should be able to tell you about what will grow best where you are, and how you can optimize the process with your space and resources. 

How to start growing food 

If you’re new to gardening and you want to begin growing your own food, I think you should start with a couple herbs such as basil and rosemary, and a vegetable plant like sweet pepper. Once you start flavoring your omelets, salads, soups, or bread with home grown herbs, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start sooner! The pepper plant will take more patience and monitoring, but the experience will increase your understanding of what edible plants entail. This will also help you get into the routine of monitoring your edible plants, using what you grow, and figuring out what you can fit into your schedule. 

I encourage everyone to grow their own food in the space available to them (backyard, balcony, spare room, rented plot), while reminding everyone to pace themselves. The last thing we want is garden burnout, which can lead to wasted efforts or feeling discouraged. 

I also think that growing edibles is the perfect opportunity for people to come together and share the labor and the reward. If growing food seems daunting, talk to your friends and family – you might have somebody in your life who is interested in getting started with you.

This is a hydroponic growing system