Tuesday, September 30, 2008

A Gardening Business for Kids

Succulents are great! They're easy to grow and don't need much water so you can ignore them for a few days. ALSO...you can grow more by doing stuff like taking a leaf and sticking it in some soil, or taking off oneremoving one of the little plants of the baby plants and potting it up. Another thing you can do is go to the nursery and buy one of their tiny potted succulents. Find one that has 3 plants in it. Carefully divide it at home and Voila! you have 3 plants! This makes it a very good business idea for kids. If you spend $1.50 to buy the first plant, grow 3 plants from it, and sell them for $1.50 each, how much profit do you make? Ahhhhh....a tricky math question.

FrancescaHere's a type of succulent called a Blue Agave. This one belongs to Martha Stewart's dog, Francesca. The dog looks like she's only 1 inch high, but I think it's trick photography. How big do you think that Agave really is? You can click on the picture to go to Martha's blog and see some of her other succulents. Look for one called an "Aloe". This plant is very good if you ever burn yourself! Not that you would...just, if ever...

Gardening Should Be Simple, EarthBox Makes it So!

hiding in the eggplantGardening should be simple...you take a seed, stick it in the ground, water it...it grows and you get a flower or a vegetable or a fruit and you pick it! But, there are a lot of things that can make it complicated...what about weeds? what about bugs? what about the computer game you're playing and you're about to reach the 14th level...not a good time for pulling weeds! what about days so hot that all the leaves crinkle up? what about your cat using the garden as a toilet?

watering the cornWell...I've just discovered a cool thing that let's you have the fun of growing things without all those extra worries and work. First things first...let's have some fun! My discovery is something called the EarthBox. The EarthBox is a great garden project for kids in a classroom or kids who are homeschooled.
kids from Nicaragua with their new EarthBoxesThere are lots of science projects you can do, and even projects that help you connect up with gardening kids from around the world. Check out The Growing Connection, and find out more.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Ben's Salamander


4 yr old Ben holding a salamander (not sure what kind but we always have them in our yard). Ben says "when it was going I had to keep moving my hands to block it so it wouldn't go away". He means he kept putting one hand in front of the other and it crawled from hand to hand so it didn't fall. Heather