Pre-planting Seeds For Your Garden With Kids

In some states, it’s well past time to have started a garden. In other states, we’re still seeing snow, which means that it’s still a bit early to plant things in the ground. Early May is the best time to really start gardening for us. As such, now is the perfect time to prepare what you’ll be planting in the ground.

This past weekend, we spent a couple of hours with the kids planting seeds in peat pots. While peat pots aren’t required to plant seeds, they are much easier to move to the ground later as you don’t have to remove the plants and replant them. You just bury them directly in the ground.

Overall, this was a very fun, but messy activity. Our kids really enjoyed it, and in a couple of weeks when we see the seeds sprouting, it will be the perfect time to get them into the garden.

Get the foods you want

The first step in planting your seeds is to figure out what you want to grow. I am a huge fan of tomatoes - they are by far my number one choice for the garden, and I could do the whole garden in tomato plants. However, we usually have a little more variety than that.

If you’ve never had a garden before, and never really eaten fresh vegetables, then get the foods that you generally like. Everything I’ve had from the garden always tastes better than what you buy at the supermarket.

Whatever seeds you choose, make sure that you know how to use them. It’s sad if you have to throw the fresh food away.

Get soil and pots

Photo by Gabriel Jimenez on Unsplash

Next up, you’ll need something to plan your seeds in. If you’re warm enough, you can go straight to the garden. As I stated, we’re still seeing snow and frozen ground at night, so we planted into pots and soil.

As I stated above, peat pots are our favorites, but they’re not always easy to find this time of year (as lots of people buy them). If you can’t find them, most any container will do that you don’t mind getting dirty.

In addition to a pot of some kind, you’re going to need soil as well. We usually just buy a bag of potting soil as it’s simple and easy. If you can get good solid from an existing garden, or your backyard, then go ahead with that as well. Make sure to get enough for all of the seeds you plan to pre-plant.

Plan for a couple of hours of planting seeds

Once you’ve got your supplied, it’s time to plan your seeds. Get somewhere that you don’t mind getting messy, and that your kids can help out - they’ll have a lot of fun putting soil and seeds into your pots.

While we have a gardening shovel, a spoon works just as well at this point in the process. You’ll be putting soil into your pots, followed by some seeds, and finally a bit of water. Make sure you label your pots in some way so you know what you’ve planted.

Once you’ve got everything planted, you’ll need somewhere to set the plants so that they can get some sun during the day. Any window sill should be fine for this purpose, but if you have somewhere else you can place them so they don’t get too cold, then that works as well. We have ours sitting in a room which hovers around 65 degrees - probably a bit cool, but fine for your plants.

Wait until it’s warm enough outside

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Next up is your waiting game. You’ll be planting your seeds into the ground at a later date, once it’s warm enough outside, but for now they’ll sit in your window sill and continue to grow. Make sure you water them every other day so that they have enough to grow.

You should start seeing some of these items sprout within a week - small at first, but they’ll start to grow quickly after that. Your kids will likely jump for joy the first time they see the first little sprout coming out of one of the pots that they helped to plant. Just make sure they don’t go and pull it up (as we’ve had happen in previous years).

Conclusion

Getting your plants ready for your garden is just the first step, but a fun activity for the whole family.