Garden Unit Study

Lori at Heart of the Matter has put together a wonderful Unit Study on Gardens. I can't wait for our snow to melt, so we can get started on a garden.

Here are some fun ideas I have to include in a garden unit study:

Agricultural Field Trips

• Visit a pick your own vegetable field.
• Look around a garden center (in a store) and talk about the different products, plants, and seeds available.
• Tour a greenhouse that grows vegetables or flowers.
• Visit an apiary - a bee farm.
• Go to your County Fair - look at the 4-H and FFA displays of fruits, vegetables, the farming industry, and antique tractors.
• Grow your own beans or tomatoes and deliver them to a soup kitchen.
• Tour a cannery.
• Go to a botanical garden.
• Look around an agricultural museum.
  
• Go through a corn maze and ask for an educational tour, also.
• Visit a pumpkin patch.
• Go to a worm farm and learn how worms are helpful for the soil.
• Look around a home and garden show.
  
• Tour the 4-H Virtual Farm - growing wheat.
• Learn about growing cocoa beans when you view the Making Chocolate Video at the Hershey site.

Make Your Own Container Garden

• Make an Herb Garden (6 min. video)
• Container Sizes and Seed Spacing
  
• Make your growing containers out of recycled items: an old tire, coffee can, plastic ice cream container, basket, trash can, plastic crate lined with cardboard, bucket, bathtub, or washing machine tub.
  

The Garden Game Players plant gardens with their "garden cards", trying to save the most seeds as they feed the soil, nurture plants and help neighbors through difficult weather cycles. The Garden Game is filled with information about every aspect of garden life, from slugs to flowers to weather, and it includes an additional booklet with a glossary and an introduction to gardening. 2-6 Players. $24.99