Activity: My First Garden

Before you get all panicky, please understand: I HAD NO HAND IN THE PLANTING. The plants in question will actually have a chance at a thriving life because I was more than 20 miles away at the time.

Now.

When "Santa" was looking for stocking stuffers for Turtle, she happened to stumble across Crayola's My First Garden at Hobby Lobby. It looked like a crayon and boasted to grow Mixed Dwarf Sunflowers - all you needed to do was "Just Add Water!"

Super!

Included in the crayon: flower seeds, coconut fiber grow pellet, biodegradable bamboo pot and easy instructions. Awesome.

MacGyver opted to take on this project with Turtle while I was out at lunch and running errands.

Given my track record with green things, perhaps it was for the best.

(And can we also give a hand to MacGyver, for his excellent photo-documentation of the grand event?)

Turtle wasn't so sure at first. I think he thought the crayon was fine, just as it was.



But then, when he found things inside to chew on, he changed his tune.



The basic gist of the "Easy Instructions" is to wet the handy "grow pellet" and to fill the pot wiht the resulting soil.

Turtle checks out the expansion process.



They decided to forego the crayon pot because it was too small, and just stuck with the extra container.

After the soil was all spread around, they added the seeds, and then created a "greenhouse effect" by covering the whole thing in saran wrap.



Which was probably a good thing, because Turtle looked like he really wanted to eat some of that soil.



Caught in the act!



The instructions say to keep the sunflowers in a sunny spot, under plastic, with regular misting. Allegedly, there should be some growth around the 3 week mark, so I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

MacGyver told me they watered it today, so fingers crossed... :)