A Floral Initial

It's fun to make a garden bed that is really special. Have you ever seen the floral clock in Melbourne, or other flower beds patterned with plants? You can do a similar thing in your own garden. Why not plant a bed shaped like the first initial of your name? (You're lucky if your name starts with T or L or V - even easier if your name is Isobel or Ivan! Some of the other letters like W and B are a bit trickier, but you will just need to allow more space.

You will need: a spade to mark out the bed; fertiliser and compost to add to the soil; punnets of seedlings (or you can grow seeds if you are more patient)

1. If you can choose a spot that you can see from above - say from a balcony or window. You will need plenty of space to mark out the letter. It could be within an existing bed or quite separate. If you like, you can mark out the shape with old bricks and fill the centre with a mixture of garden soil and compost. Do leave enough room for the plants to grow.

2. Tall growing plants will not be suitable. Ground-hugging, flowering plants will work best.

Here are some possibilities:

Alyssum (Sweet Alice) - white, purple, lavender, apricot (Top choice!)
Bellis (English Daisy) - pink or white
French Marigold - yellow, orange, red or bronzy brown
Pansy - yellow, white, purple, blue, rose, apricot, cream, black, pink and many colour mixtures
Viola - blue, cream, yellow, black, purple, red
Lobelia - blue, purple, white, mauve
Vinca - pink, white, crimson
Impatiens - pink, white, orange, apricot, purple, red, lavender (Use in shady areas)

I think your letter will look the best if you choose just one or two types of flowers and one or two colours only.

3. Plant the seedlings or seeds close together so that you create a mass of colour; but be sure to give the bed plenty of water and fertiliser.

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Growing Nasturtiums

Nasturtiums are easy to grow, have very pretty flowers and you can eat them! Nasturtiums come from Peru and they actually flower best if you don’t water or fertilise them very much at all. They look great in hanging baskets. Nasturtium seeds are large and easy to plant. 

What to Do:

1. The best idea is to plant nasturtium seeds where they are to grow.

2. Make sure the soil is well dug over and nice and damp.

3. Nasturtium seeds need darkness to germinate. Plant the seeds and cover them with soil. Then cover the soil lightly with some fine grass clippings. Make sure the soil doesn’t dry out.

4. Seedlings will appear in 2-3 weeks.

5. Nasturtiums grow quickly and have round leaves. The leaves have a peppery taste and can be used in salads.

6. The flowers are usually yellow, orange or red. Each flower usually has a long ‘spur’ at the base of the flower. If you pinch the very end off the spur and suck it, you can usually taste the sweet nectar. (Just be sure there isn’t an ant inside the flower - yucky!) The flower petals can also be used in salads.

7. The flowers are followed by the seeds which are like tiny, wrinkled jelly beans. These can be eaten too, and can be pickled and used instead of capers.

8. Some people make a tea with the leaves and use it to help with chest infections. Fresh leaves and flowers contain lots of Vitamin C.

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Growing Potatoes in Tyres

Do you like potato chips? Most kids (and adults) do, so how would you like to grow your own potatoes? I bet they'll make the best chips your family's ever tasted! A beaut way of growing potatoes is in old tyres because it keeps out the light so well. (If potatoes are exposed to light they go green and are quite poisonous. Green potatoes can make you sick if you eat them). You will be able to harvest your spuds in autumn.

You will need: 3 old tyres, several old potatoes, some garden soil and compost mixed together, complete fertiliser, mulch.

1. You might be able to find some old potatoes in the cupboard that are already starting to sprout. If you look at any potato you can see the "eyes" which are the shoots that are going to emerge. Each shoot can form a new potato plant. You can cut big potatoes into chunks, providing that each chunk has one or two eyes.

2. Leave cut pieces in the shed to dry out for several days. If the shoots haven't emerged, put them in a dark cupboard for a week or so or until the shoots are about 1cm long, then it's time to plant them.

3. Clear away any grass or weeds and dig up the soil in the place where you are going to put the tyres. It will have to be a sunny spot.

4. Place one tyre on top of the dug soil. Fill it with soil and compost and mix in some fertiliser. Place 3 or 4 potatoes or potato chunks on the soil. Put another tyre on top. Almost fill the second tyre with the soil mix. Sprinkle some more fertiliser on top. Water well and then cover with a layer of mulch to keep the soil moist.

5. When the potato shoots have grown and are about 20cm tall, place another tyre carefully on top of the stack and add some more soil and compost as you did before. (Don't bury the whole shoot!)

6. Keep the top tyre topped up with mulch or compost so that the growing potatoes are not exposed to the light

7. Keep the potato plants well-watered.

8. The potato plants will eventually flower and then they will start to yellow. Stop watering them and wait till the plants are quite yellow.

9. Harvest your potatoes by taking off the tyres one by one and digging with your hands for your "buried treasure". That's the best bit!

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A Maize Maze

Mazes are great fun. Usually they take many years to grow but there is a way to make a maze in just one season – with corn plants! (You can see how high corn plants can grow from the picture left.) Maize is another name for corn, and a maze is like a puzzle – you have to find your way through it and out the other side. The great thing about growing a maze of maize plants is that you get to eat all the yummy sweet corn as well. This is a big job so you will probably need a grown-up to help you.

You will need: a large area of ground about 5m by 5m (An old unused vegetable garden would be good, or there may even be enough room in your schoolyard to grow a maze.); a large (about 250g) bag of corn seed (sweet corn is delicious but you can grow the maze from ordinary uncracked corn seed used as chook food); compost; fertilizer; plenty of water; mulch; snail bait.

What to do:
1. First you need to create a plan for the maze. The corn plants will be planted close together but you will need to leave about 1 m between the rows so that it is easy to walk between them. You will need to make your plan to scale, say 1cm = 50cm. I have made one up (see right) but I’m sure you will be able to come up with something cleverer. It has to be a bit tricky, but you must also leave room for the corn plants to grow.
2. Dig up the area where the maze is to be planted and mix in plenty of compost and add fertilizer at the side of the rows.
3. Water the area really well. When you plant the seeds the soil should be nice and damp.
4. Measure and mark out the maze. You can use a plastic bag of flour with a tiny hole in one corner to mark out the lines.
5. Plant a double row of corn seed. Seeds should be 10cm apart and the second row should be planted 10 cm behind with the seeds planted in between the first row, like this:

If the soil is good and damp it probably won’t need watering again until the seedlings appear in about 7-10 days.

6. Mulch between the rows.
7. As soon as the seedlings show signs of emerging, scatter the snail bait around.
8. Corn plants needs plenty of water and fertilizer, especially when they are planted this close, so keep them growing quickly.
9. Pull out any weeds that come up in the corn rows or between them.
10. After about 3 months you will be able to harvest some of the corn cobs. When they are ready, they stick out sideways a bit from the plant. You harvest them by breaking them off by bending them outwards and downwards. The more cobs you harvest, the more will be produced. They are delicious eaten straight off the plant or they can be cooked. They are A-MAIZE-ING!

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Planting things from seed is fun but sometimes you have to wait AGES for the seedlings to appear and AGES more for the plants to grow enough so you can eat them. With Mr Box Head you can make a funny punky pot plant and EAT HIS HAIR in no time at all!

You will need: an empty 2 litre plastic milk container, a saucer, a packet of mustard or cress seeds (or a mixture), some potting mix, scissors, small towel, permanent felt markers.

What to do:

1. Wash out the milk container well. Cut it in half just under the handle to make a pot about 14cm high.

2. Ask an adult to help you make some drainage holes in the bottom of the plastic "pot" with a sharp knife.

3. Stuff the container with a small towel or newspaper to make it easier to write on.

4. Draw two large eyes, a big nose and a wide smiley mouth and colour them with the permanent markers. (Don’t use water-soluble textas or the colour will run.) Add ears on the sides, a moustache, a nose ring, anything you like!

5. Remove the towel and fill the pot almost to the top with moist potting mix. (If the mix is dry, put it in a plastic bag with a cup of water and give it a really good shake before putting it in the pot.)

6. Scatter the mustard or cress seeds over the top thickly and sprinkle lightly with a little extra damp potting mix.

7. Water the pot very, very gently. A water sprayer is a good idea.

8. Sit the pot on the saucer on a bright window ledge and turn it in a half circle each day. Spray the surface lightly each day so it stays moist. In a few days Mr Box Head will have lots of green "hair".

9. When the mustard or cress is about 4cm tall, use the scissors to give your funny face a punk haircut.

10. Use the cut leaves to add to boiled egg, meat or salad sandwiches or sprinkle on soup or add to omelettes or scrambled eggs.

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Growing Calendulas

Calendulas are great fun to grow because they flower in winter. The flowers are big daisies that are orange, yellow or gold in colour. If you sow the seeds in April, they should be flowering in July.

What you will need: a sunny garden bed (or some large pots); compost or potting mix; fertilizer; a packet of calendula seeds.

What to do:

1. Dig the garden bed over and fork in the compost. Mix in a complete fertilizer as well. (A complete fertilizer is one that contains nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). A fertilizer might have 15% nitrogen, 4% phosphorus and 10% potassium, so its NPK is 15:4:10. These nutrients are essential for plant growth. A complete fertilizer will contain other nutrients as well eg iron, sulphur, magnesium, manganese and a whole lot of trace elements. Plants only need just a trace of these, but they are still essential.)

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Do you like pineapples? They are sweet and juicy and very good for you. Pineapple chunks are great for school lunches. When you buy a pineapple, try to buy one that still has its spiky leaves on top because that means that you can also get a great pot plant for free!

What you need: a fresh pineapple; a pot; potting mix.

1. Ask a grown up to slice the leafy top off the pineapple leaving about 2 cm of the skin and flesh attached.

2. Fill the pot with potting mix.

3. Plant the pineapple top so that the fleshy part is just below the surface of the soil.

4. Water it well.

5. Place the pot in a sunny location and keep it well-watered and fertilised.

6. The top will grow into a pineapple plant and, if it is warm enough, it may even produce a pineapple itself.

7. The botanical name for the pineapple is Ananas, which is bananas without the B!

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Are there fairies at the bottom of your garden? My little daughters were always making tea parties for the fairies with leaves for plates and flowers for cups. They had a special area under a Japanese Maple that seemed just right for fairies. Maybe you would like to make a special fairy place as well. (Real fairy rings are actually circles of mushrooms that are the "flowers" of a special type of fungus. You can’t plant those, but you can make a different kind of circle for them instead.

What You Need: a short stake, a hammer, some string, a drawing pin, an old narrow house-painting brush, some old paint, a trowel, plants. (Suitable plants are Scleranthus; Snow-in-Summer (Cerastium) (trim the flowers off); dwarf Mondo Grass, Dragon’s Blood Clover; Baby’s Tears (for shade). The best plants are ones that hug the ground closely like a carpet. OR you can just use a handful of lawn seed and keep the grass in the circle cut higher than the rest of the lawn.

What to Do:
1. Ask the grown-ups where you can make your fairy ring. It might be in the lawn under some trees or near the play equipment. You are going to make a circle of vegetation that is a contrasting colour and texture to the grass around it, or a circle of vegetation in the mulch. Make sure you ask before you begin.

2. Hammer the stake into the ground where you think the middle of the circle should be.

3. Push the drawing pin into the top of the stake (not too far).

4. Cut a piece of string long enough to stretch from the stake to the outside of the circle. (Allow extra for tying.)

5. Tie a loose loop in one end of the string and tie the old paint brush to the other end.

6. Put the loop over the drawing pin and pull the paintbrush away from the stake until the string is straight.

7. Dip the paintbrush in the paint, and keeping the string straight, paint a circle around the stake. Take your time, keep the string straight, and carry the paint with you so you can dip it in again whenever you need to. A few blobs and drips won’t matter, but you should have a pretty good circle by the time you are back to where you started.

8. Use the trowel to dig out all the grass inside the circle, making a nice sharp edge. (On mulch, remove the mulch from inside the circle and dig up the soil underneath.) Add some compost to the soil if you have some.

9. Put as many plants into the circle as you can afford but the plants will have to grow to fill up the empty spaces. (You can fill the empty spaces with some sand in the meantime if you like.) Keep the area well watered. (An easy way to do the circles of lawn instead is to use a new product called Scotts PatchMaster. Sprinkle it thickly and evenly over the whole of the circle and keep it moist. The grass seeds are already in the mix.)

10. Use scissors to cut off any bits that grow over the edge of the circle. I’m sure the fairies will just love their own special place!

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Dahlias grow from big fat tubers and you can plant them in spring. They come from Mexico and the Aztecs used to eat the tubers, though I don’t think they are particularly tasty. Dahlias grow during spring and summer and the big daisy-like flowers appear in late summer and autumn. The Dahlia is the national flower of Mexico.

You will need: dahlia tubers; garden stakes; a complete fertilizer; some mulch; a sunny spot in the garden; snail pellets; plant ties.

What to do:
1. The best spot to plant dahlias is one that gets sun for most of the day but is shaded in the late afternoon. Dig the soil over and mix in a complete fertilizer.

2. Make the planting hole and hammer in a garden stake. Green stakes blend in best with the garden. (You can make good stakes out of small tree branches painted green.)

3. Plant the dahlia tuber close to each stake. Plant it so that the neck of the tuber and the new shoots are above the soil.

4. Water in well and cover the soil with mulch.

5. Sprinkle snail pellets around. Be careful with green and blue pellets because they are poisonous to you and your pets. Multiguard pellets are much safer to use.

6. Keep the soil around the dahlias moist but not too wet.

7. As the plants grow taller, you will need to tie them to the stakes. Old pantyhose cut into strips makes good plant ties.

8. When the plants start to flower you can start using a liquid fertilizer every few weeks if you like.

9. Cut off the dead flowers so that the plant will go on producing more and more flowers. (This is called dead-heading).

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Indoor plants are very good at extracting bad stuff from the air, so having lots of potted plants indoors can keep the air you breathe nice and clean. To work as an air cleaner, indoor plants need to be grown in potting mix. It is the tiny bugs (micro-organisms) in the potting mix and the plant roots that work together to clean the air. Who would think that tiny little critters like that could be so useful! If you choose easy-to-grow indoor plants you can help keep your family healthy.

What you will need: a large pot with no drainage hole in the bottom, a smaller pot with a drainage hole, some pebbles, potting mix, a plant. The best plants to choose are Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum clevelandii) or Pothos (Epipremnum aureum). The good thing about both of these is that when they grow bigger you can divide them or take cuttings and make more plants. For best results you need 5 or 6 plants to the average sized room.

What to do:
1. The pot you have bought the plant in may be fine for the first year or so. If you have taken a cutting from someone else’s plant you will need to pot it up in the pot with the drainage hole.

2. Put some pebbles in the bottom of the pot with no drainage hole and put the plant pot on top. The pebbles will stop the pot sitting in any water that might drain out the bottom when you water your plant and water won’t spill out and make a mess.

3. Find a nice spot inside for the plant that is brightly-lit but does not get any direct sunlight through a window.

4. Keep the pot well away from heating vents.

5. Both of these plants don’t like to be too wet, so you only need to water them once or twice a week, less in winter.

6. The Peace Lily will get lots of leaves and white flowers from time to time.

7. The Pothos will grow long stems. (See picture top right.) It is a type of vine called a liana. Here is a good tip. Pieces of Pothos will grow just in water – you can break pieces off and grow them in bottles or tall vases and as long as you remember to keep filling them up with water, the Pothos will just keep growing and growing. You can have a jungle in your bedroom! Remember though, to keep the air clean, they have to be growing in potting mix.

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Pumpkins are fun to grow but you need a LOT of space. They grow very fast in warm weather. Pumpkin tastes great, especially when it’s baked and it is also yummy in scones, pies and cakes. In the USA they hollow out pumpkins and carve scary faces into them to make Halloween lanterns (called Jack-O’-Lanterns See a picture)  but we have usually eaten up all our pumpkins by Halloween which is on 31^st October. Pumpkins in the southern hemisphere are usually ready to eat around March/April. There is no reason why you couldn’t make a lantern then for fun anyway.

What You Need : compost or cow manure, blood & bone, complete fertilizer, pumpkin seeds

1. Find a spot with plenty of room for the pumpkin vines to spread.

2. Make a mound by digging some compost or manure into the soil. Add some blood & bone.

3. Make a dip in the middle of the mound to form a shallow crater.

4. Water very well and then plant five pumpkin seeds into the crater.

5. When the seedlings emerge, choose the healthiest two and pull the others out.

6. Keep the pumpkin plants well-watered.

7. When the first flowers appear, fertilise with the complete fertilizer. Repeat in 6 weeks time.

8. Bees will fertilise the flowers but just to make sure, use a little paintbrush to collect pollen from the male flowers (they are the ones on long stalks) and dust it into the centre of the female flowers (they have short stalks and a round lump just below the flower which will eventually grow into a pumpkin.)

9. When the vines yellow and start to die off it’s time to pick the pumpkins. If you cut them with a bit of stalk attached you can store them for a long time in a dry place.

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