Rainbow Garden
Plant this one in an arch shape of 7 rows. Each row is devoted to a specific color of the rainbow. In order, the rainbow colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. You'll most likely have to use flowering or foliage annual bedding plants for this one.
Colonial kitchen Garden
A garden of herbs and vegetables common in our country's first years is an opportunity to learn about food and history while having fun. A little research will provide you will lots to choose from like carrots, onion, garlic, corn, and beans. Flavorings of the era include the herbs sage, rosemary, parsley, and mint. The kitchen garden of the Colonial era was also the main source of the family's dye for coloring their wool and their medicines, so don't overlook the herbs of yarrow, calendula, nettle and flax.
The Pizza Garden
Your child's hands down favorite garden is likely to be the 'Pizza Garden'. There are two ways to plant a Pizza Garden:
- One that is simply planted in the shape of a pizza that will also look like a pizza.
Plant this one in a pizza wedge shape or round like a whole pie. Use wheatstraw or cypress chips as a mulch in the garden to create the color-effect of the dough. Include and place plants that will resemble toppings, such as red flowering or foliage plants that will look like pepperoni pieces and green plants that will look like green peppers.
- One in which your kids will actually be growing plants that they can use to make a pizza!
With one exception, all of the basic pizza (non-meat) ingredients are easily grown at home. Wheat, for the dough, is the one plant that will be more of a challenge. It's worth adding it to the garden plan just to give your child the complete sense of where his food comes from. If you are ambitious, you can pulverize some of the grains in a food processor or spice grinder to show how wheat becomes flour. You probably won't have enough to actually make pizza dough but the kids will think it is cool to make a bit of flour! Everything else for a pizza is easy for kids to help plant and tend. The vegetables are onion, garlic, peppers, tomato and mushrooms of you really want a growing challenge. Herbs include oregano, basil, and rosemary.
