Planting the Seed

Nope, I'm not using a clever, metaphorical title to represent the importance of instilling good habits in a toddler. Or am I? According to some resources I found at our local Chicago Botanic Garden, we can begin planting our vegetable seeds indoors. This sounded like a natural home school project to me; so we did it. (See what I did there? Natural....okay, I will stop being clever.)

We headed to Home Depot and bought vegetable plant starter soil, biodegradable starter pots and let the boy pick out some seeds. We also are lucky to have a "seed library" at our botanic garden, where our family checked out 4 types of seeds. We will then cultivate seeds from the plants we grow this year and return the seeds to the garden. Cool program, and I highly recommend checking to see if your garden has one!

We also found a fun starter tray that had 40 spaces, pre-filled will soil. All you have to do is add water and plop a seed in each spot. If you are debating, "should I spend $5 dollars on this convenience item," I recommend you just do it. This tray made it so easy to explain to my toddler that you take a seed or two, put it in the center of each space and spray the tray with water. Plus, SPOILER ALERT, the seeds in this tray have already sprouted!

We are lucky to have had my husband's grandfather build us a 20X11 foot garden in our yard. We will eventually transplant the vegetables out there Memorial Day weekend. While my husband's dear grandfather has passed on, we have loved showing our son how Old Nonno saved and cultivated zucchini and tomato seeds that originally came with him from Sicily. So not only has this planting extravaganza been a lesson in nature for our son, it has been a lesson in family history!

So even if you live in the Midwest, I highly recommend a trip to grab some soil, $1 seed packs and pots to start your growing adventure. Come Memorial Day weekend, you will have some beautiful plants that are ready to make their home in the ground or in larger pots outside in your yard or even in the case of herbs, on your windowsill.


While we worked on our planting project this week, we read a great book from our local library called Up, Down and Around. My toddler loved it so much, we will be ordering it to read throughout the Spring and Summer!