4H Gardening Meeting – Planting Seeds

We had our second 4H gardening meeting this week.  I was cutting up seed potatoes when the kids arrived, so I was able to show them how to prepare potatoes for planting.  We cut them into pieces, leaving at least one eye on each piece, then set them out in the sun all afternoon to let the cut edges crust over.  The next day my kids and I planted them in a trench in the garden cut side down.  This is the first year for potatoes in our garden, so I am excited to see how they turn out.

After we finished cutting up the potatoes, the 4H kids and I discussed how deep to plant seeds, what time of year to plant different seeds and starting seedlings.  Then we made seedling pots out of newspaper and they planted cherry tomatoes and marigold seeds.

We also made seed tapes out of toilet paper.  I made a glue out of flour and water ahead of time and put it into a squeeze bottle.  They each had a few squares of toilet paper.  They put the flour glue onto the toilet paper where they wanted the seeds.  Then they placed the carrot seeds onto the glue.  My kids planted theirs the next day in the garden by lightly covering the toilet paper up with soil.

Check out more gardening inspiration in the Peterson’s Garden Club and be inspired to go green at Heavenly Homemaker’s The Little Green Project.