For children, digging and planting veggies then harvesting a little crop, puts them in touch with the earth and her resources. It nurtures a direct relationship between growing things and the food we eat. In fact studies have shown that children are much more likely to eat things that they have grown themselves.

This week on our outdoor adventure Maddie took Tobie and Cluny to a local nursery to choose some punnets of vegetables to take home and plant.

We decided to keep our veggie patch quite simple. Our drought conditions means that watering our veggie patch has to be done either from our rainwater tank  or bath water. We are lucky to have a little veggie patch in our backyard , but you can also plant veggies in planters and pots!

Our garden has a little brick pathway so the kids can work away without stepping on any of the plants.  We turned our soil adding compost as well as sheep manure from the nursery.

At the nursery the girls chose a tomatoe plant, some lettuce, a punnet of basil, some spring onions, some bean seeds and a punnet of marigolds. The marigolds attract helpful bugs to the garden such as lady beetles, which love to feast on little insects that might chew away on our veggies!

Maddie carefully built a Tee pi for our beans to climb up, using bamboo and string. The girls planted about twelve seeds around the base of the tee pi, and in just over a week, the seeds had germinated and popped up through the soil. As the beans grew, the girls have been encouraging them to twist up and around the tee pi.

We also pushed a couple of sunflower seeds into a pot and now, a few months later, we have these gigantic flowers , their heads bigger than ours! We are now waiting for their seeds to dry and drop so we can eat them.

Unfortunately due to the lack of water, the tomatoes haven’t thrived, and whilst our beans were off to an amazing start, did eventually start to whither in the very hot temperatures we have had.

Our basil has been plentiful, perfect for making pesto!