Garden Unit: Day 4 All About Seeds

All about Seeds

Thursday, we decided to do another “field trip” to the home improvement store to pick out seeds for our planting.  Before we went, we discussed the types of plants we could grow in our garden as well as when to plant them. I also explained how some seeds take longer than others and there may be special requirements for some types of food. For example, some plants can be planted inside seed containers and then transferred later into the ground.  For example, Peppers are recommended to start indoors in seed containers because of the length of time the peppers take to develop.   Other plants such as watermelons and pumpkins do not do well when transferred and should be planted directly into the soil.   We did not attempt starting seeds indoors, however, I can see this being in our future gardening adventure.

As soon as we got to the home improvement store, my son started to explain to me that some food grow on trees, bushes, vines or even underground.  I thought I was supposed to be teaching him,
but realized quickly, that I might need to be taking notes from him.  As we approached the racks of garden seeds, my son immediately grabbed a packet.  His choice was a packet of carrot seeds.  My son’s favorite food is carrots, so this was a great option.  As we were browsing at the other hundreds packets of seeds, my son mentioned that he did not recognize some of the food.  This gave me an idea for an activity that I created later in the day.  I constructed a matching game, and provided a link of it for your personal use.  An answer sheet is provided as well.

When we were strolling around the garden at the store (yes, I am still here an hour later because my son likes to look at everything), we found a juvenile bell pepper plant that was planted in biodegradable pots.  The planter pot could be placed directly in the soil for an easy transfer and the pot will become part of the soil.  My son was eager to have a plant that was already started and I couldn’t resist the thought of having my own bell peppers, so it found its way in our cart.

On our way home (yes, my son actually let us leave), my son realized we only had vegetables to grow although, he was hoping to work with fruits.  In an effort to make his hope a reality, I reminded him of the grape vines on the side of our house.  When I first started working on creating this curriculum for my son, it was still winter.  The grape vines had looked dead, but we were not too sure because we just moved into this property a month prior. However, when spring made its appearance, beautiful green leaves appeared on the plants and we decided to make these grapes a part of our curriculum.

Matching:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By0QNYgSFLFKcDU5OFM2dHpXNWM

Answers:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By0QNYgSFLFKbzM3NW1qRHN5aUk