Garden Activities to Keep You Busy While Your Plants Grow
By Kaw Valley Greenhouses, Inc.
Playing in your garden doesn’t just include planting in the spring!
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It’s summertime and the spring gardening activities are complete: flowers are blooming, vegetables are growing, and the barbeque is cookin’ something good every evening. With your garden in a good spot, there are not many garden maintenance activities until it’s time to harvest and prune back in the fall.
So, what is there to do now? Keep reading for our list of summer garden activities that are fun for the whole family.
Bring the Indoors Out!
Just because most of our everyday tasks around the house are done indoors doesn’t mean they can’t turn into a garden activity during the summer months! Whether you have laundry to fold, a book to read, kids to teach, or if you’re working from home, your garden can become your go-to oasis to make chores a garden activity and a more enjoyable experience. With a little investment in comfortable furniture and some sun-shelter, you can enjoy your garden all day, every day!
Make a Fairy or Dinosaur Garden
If you want to spend the days outdoors but need the kids to be on board, consider building fairy gardens or dinosaur gardens as a family garden activity. They are a fun fusion of gardening and play that will be sure to keep your young ones occupied and enjoying garden activities as much as you do.
These gardens can be grown in large pots with lots of space for little ones to play. Fill the pot with soil and plant small flowers and foliage plants. You can make pathways with rocks or mulch and add moss wherever you’d like for a custom mini landscape.
Once you have a foundation, your little ones can add pools of water, toy dinos and fairies, fairy houses, mushrooms, mini garden furniture, and even painted rocks to look like volcanoes. The options are endless, and this activity will keep them busy in the garden all summer long.
Artwork Activities
You’re never too old to make artwork, and making patterns from your garden foliage is a great activity for the whole family. Start by harvesting some clippings of the plants you’d like to make patterns of. Place them on a hard surface and put a piece of paper over top. With your medium of choice, rub the surface of the paper so that the imprint of the veins in the plant create a darker pattern than the rest of the leaf or plant. We recommend wax crayons for kids, but you can also use the flat edge of a pencil or oil pastel.
Once your pattern is done, you can add more leaves and make an elaborate design, or add other artwork around it!
Build Bird Feeders
There are literally dozens of ideas out there for how to make super cute bird feeders that will have your garden full of feathery friends (and probably some squirrels!) in no time. Whether you want to build one as a meditative solo project or if the kids want to get involved too, this is a fabulous activity that will enrich your garden.
If you want to make a traditional bird feeder, you can make a simple one with a single piece of wood. Other creative ideas include hanging a small bowl or teacup in a macrame hanger, recycling plastic bottles with holes cut out of the sides, or making birdseed bars in fun shapes that hang from a string. Nearly any recyclable material can be made into a bird feeder with a little creativity!
Bird Watching
Once you’ve made some bird feeders, watching for unique birds could be a great group activity. With a list of birds that you’re likely to see in your local area, you can make a game for you or for the whole family of checking off each bird you see with hopes of spotting a unique one! You can even do some research on how to attract particular types of birds to your garden.
If you are interested in the activities we are up to in our test gardens and getting ready for the next season; check us out on Facebook!
Need some advice on how to start a beautiful garden? Sign up for our email newsletter, and receive free gardening articles, resources, and container designs to your inbox.