Container Gardening with Kids

We had our first 4-H meeting of the year this week and invited Tom Wichman to be the guest speaker. He's our state Master Gardener coordinator and always does great presentations with the kids. We did container gardening with dianthus flowers. It was great - the project was easy and the kids got to take home something that was ready to go. If you've got kids at home, container gardening is an easy and immediate project.

Tom's giving an overview of plants here.














One of our older members was a big help showing the younger ones how to plant.














All the kids with their finished container gardens.














Originally, we had wanted to do pineapple plant containers with the kids. Normally, we go to the local grocery store and ask the produce manager to save the tops of the pineapples they cut up. Unfortunately, Dole no longer ships pineapples with tops on them. We tried two other grocery stores, but guess who supplies their pineapples? Dole. So, I guess this means no more pineapple containers for all the classes and 4-H groups who do this. I am going to write a letter to Dole and ask them if there is anyway we can get pineapple tops another way. Kids love this project and it would be a shame to never be able to do it again.