Thanksgiving weekend seems like a great time to be outside with children working on gardening projects.

Outside.

Gardening goals out the window, just get them outside and having some fun with dirt. Zane and I (our weekend started Wednesday) had read a little about mud facials in the newspaper. So we mixed red clay from the yard, a little olive oil and lemon juice and offered facials. We didn’t make a dime. But I feel as young as he is and you know what it taught him?

Neither do I.

That’s just fine—one day, maybe he’ll make a connection about clay, dirt, germs, skin and who knows what next, politics?

I did work outside this week. And I did a couple of things that would be easy, fun plant based projects for a Thanksgiving weekend outside, with a child or for that matter and just as importantly, with anybody who wants to learn a little about gardening.

Fun Gardening Projects

I made a 30 x 10 mushroom bed with a 30 long row alternating with lilies and parsley (seeded in and garlic). You can buy a mushroom spore kit at WholeFoods, some garlic and flax seed too. Buy a few bags of hardwood chips and add a little bed to the garden. Do you know that mushrooms can grow right among your flowers? Mixed in with other plants? Think about it, they do so in the wild.

I planted hundreds of bulbs. Buy bulbs, little ones seems to be easiest and let children push them in anywhere in the garden. Lots of bulbs are on sale now.

Then I moved a big pile of dirt. One of the local boys who hangs around asked why I had that pile of dirt. I told him, with a straight face, that I it was there so he could make a volcano. He did. Then worked and worked at it. Next, we put a cup of baking soda down in it, poured on the vinegar and let it erupt till we ran out of vinegar.

I worked with a client who wants to learn to root. Pick the easiest thing you have for rooting — butterfly bush, crepe myrtle, or chrysanthemum. Then cut about 50 cuttings and stick them in ground somewhere for the winter. You’ll have plants to give away next summer.

What About You?

Who did fun gardening projects outside with you? How did you learn that dirt and plants and birds are a communal, world resource, something to enjoy, share and take care of?

Get out in your garden over this weekend. Do anything with any child or you know for that matter, any body who wants to learn to be outside. Do any gardening projects. Don’t worry about goals, just be outside, tell somebody a story about how cool, inspiring, amazing the living world is.

Too often, our gardens are places we constantly shop for, buy for, and add to. This weekend, let your garden be a source for fun and joy and maybe some plants to give away.

Looking Good This Week:

Chrysanthemum ‘Miss Gloria’s Mum’
Tagetes lucida
Tagetes lemonii
Helianthus angustifolia
Gloxina ‘Evita’
Punica granatum var. nana
Salvia leucantha