Herb Gardens
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Thread: Herb Gardens

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    Default Herb Gardens

    Does anyone grow herbs with the children? If so, which ones are good to grow and do you actually use them afterwards?

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    Quote Originally Posted by mumofone View Post
    Does anyone grow herbs with the children? If so, which ones are good to grow and do you actually use them afterwards?
    I'm a bit obsessed with growing herbs. Rosemary seems to be the most hardy for me. At the moment we have rosemary, lavender, sage, mint. We usually have a lot more on the go. We use them in cooking all the time and it is so much cheaper than buying a small bunch/packet each time - lamb with rosemary, pasta with basil etc. and the children love cutting off a sprig/leaves for me to use. They then love 'squashing' it with the pestle and mortar.

    The children just love smelling them and smelling their hands after handling them. Even the two year olds can identify some herbs by their scent. They do pretend cooking outside with them, I mix it into play dough, the water tray, paint, scent rice with it for their scooping ad poring, scent salt with it for the mark making tray. I use it in small world scenes to add a sensory element too. You can use it in treasure baskets for babies too - either wrap it in muslin so that it isn't a choking hazard or put it inside a container with small holes in it.

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    I have Rosemary, very hardy and you can pick it and use it all year.

    Mint is hardy as well but needs to be grown in a pot to restrict the roots otherwise it takes over the garden!. I have mine a 10" pot which is sunk into the flower bed so the top is just above the level of the soil. It is quite big and dies down in the winter it is just shooting well now.

    Sage is easy to grow in a flower bed or in a pot. Mine is in a pot. You can pick and use all year.

    Thyme. I have lots of different ones all planted in the front of a walled flower bed where the creep and small nice when we sit on the patio. Can pick and use all year.

    I also grow parsley, starting a new one this year they don't last forever but it can grow through the winter if it is in a sheltered spot.

    I don't grow them specifically with the children but we do go out and pick them together to use in cooking.

    I do grow veg from seed with the children planting the seed. I have a raised bed that they get planted in.

    I also get seed potatoes from the potato Council free every year (5th year this year) and we plant those together in the bags and the children top up the soil as the tubers grow.

    They love picking the veg and eating it.

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    Herbs: Great plants for children to nurture as they are so hardy.
    We have developed a herb garden in our front garden for our use and our neighbours but the children love to go out and help me weed it and we plant out seeds we have grown. Curry plant, thyme, sage, mint, bay, lavendar, margoram, Rosemary .Borage.

    We have developed a small sensory area in the back garden for smelling and touching and herbs are a big part of this.
    Like Maza said, the children play with it aswell as touch and smell. Though I would love the Playdoh recipe please.

    Basil and Parsley are grown in pots in the salad bar of the children's kitchen and in my greenhouse.

    I never buy fresh herbs from the supermarket, and we dry them now so haven't bought the main ones for ages in dried form either - I hang them in our shed and airing cupboard. I freeze dry too. The children spread the herbs out on the freezing tray for me.
    The children help me fill our cannisters after drying.

    We make home made gujons, fish and chicken and the children choose which herbs they want in the bread crumbs and use their harvesting basket to help collect.

    herbs are perfect to watch grow as they grow so quickly..... And like Maza has said, 2 year olds remember the name because it is linked to the distinct smell. They offer smell and touch, sage can be so soft to touch and Rosemary is spikey, you walk past the sensory garden and the lavendar edge smells great.

    Last year a couple of my LO's loved ️drinking cold mint tea after they had made it and let it infuse.

    Go for it !
    Last edited by FloraDora; 05-04-2015 at 07:44 PM.

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    I just use my regular playdough recipe. You can soak the herbs in water for a few hours beforehand and also just plonk some in the pan as you cook it - bruise it first with the pestle and morter. They add a nice texture too. Sometimes I just add one herb or sometimes two or three. I might keep the colour natural or I might colour it to match the herb - purple for lavender, yellow for lemon thyme, green for mint etc.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Maza View Post
    I just use my regular playdough recipe. You can soak the herbs in water for a few hours beforehand and also just plonk some in the pan as you cook it - bruise it first with the pestle and morter. They add a nice texture too. Sometimes I just add one herb or sometimes two or three. I might keep the colour natural or I might colour it to match the herb - purple for lavender, yellow for lemon thyme, green for mint etc.
    Maza could you give me your regular play dough recipe please? You won't believe this but I've never made it!

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    1 cup of flour (I get the cheapest I can find)
    Quarter cup of salt
    2tsp cream of tarter
    1tsp oil (any cooking oil)
    1 cup of water

    Add the dry ingredients to a pan, then the wet ingredients, give it a stir and then cook it on the hob - stirring continuously - until it all binds together.

    You can add food colouring to the water and flavourings from the baking section to make it smell nice. If your little ones don't eat it you could add scented shampoos/conditioner, essential oils (eucalyptus when they have a cold!), colour it with paint or spices (turmeric is particularly good at colouring things), add ginger and cinnamon at Christmas time, use herbal tea bags to scent your water, jelly, kool aid, add glitter, sequins, oh the list goes on. I am obsessed with playdough. I have a stash of 'past the sell by date' ingredients which I save for playdough -coconut, cloves, star Anais. I couldn't bring myself to buy these things just for playdough but am always delighted when I find something old in my cupboard!

    I keep the recipe blue-tacked to the inside of my kitchen cupboard door. I put my big stock pot on the little table or a cloth on the floor and the little ones add the ingredients themselves using measuring cups and measuring spoons. I have put my playdough flour in a 'deepish' ice cream tub so that the little ones can measure it out. Pouring flour out of the bag is a bit difficult for two year olds and so they feel more independent this way.

    The recipe above is (I find) enough for one or two children to play with. Store it in an air tight container in a cupboard.

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    If you use boiling water, then you don't need to cook it on the hob :-)

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    Quote Originally Posted by loocyloo View Post
    If you use boiling water, then you don't need to cook it on the hob :-)
    I have never had any luck with that method. I wish I did because then I wouldn't have a pan to wash! x

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    Quote Originally Posted by Maza View Post

    I have never had any luck with that method. I wish I did because then I wouldn't have a pan to wash! x
    :-( it always works for me ... sometimes I need to add a little bit more flour as I knead it.
    My recipe is
    1 cup flour
    1 cup salt
    1 cup boiling water
    2 tbsp oil
    1tsp cream of tartar
    Plus whatever else I add!

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    Beans & Herbs at Warminster are very good for seed and plants. Beans and Herbs

    They do plenty of varieties that aren't easily available in the garden centres. Some excellent information on their website on getting strted, including a starter list for a basic herb garden.

    The website is badly designed and can be hard to navigate if you try to use the left hand column. Best to open up the 'site index' and open the links in new windows from there.

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    I've got a big plant tub that I want to use for my mindee, can we plant some herbs in the same pot or do they need different pots each? What else could I plant with her dyou think?

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    Quote Originally Posted by bunyip View Post
    Beans & Herbs at Warminster are very good for seed and plants. Beans and Herbs They do plenty of varieties that aren't easily available in the garden centres. Some excellent information on their website on getting strted, including a starter list for a basic herb garden. The website is badly designed and can be hard to navigate if you try to use the left hand column. Best to open up the 'site index' and open the links in new windows from there.
    Oops just saw this, thanks bunyip :-)

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    Quote Originally Posted by mumofone View Post
    I've got a big plant tub that I want to use for my mindee, can we plant some herbs in the same pot or do they need different pots each? What else could I plant with her dyou think?
    I have one long salad and herb bar for LO's, seeds go straight in. It's mainly in strips of different herbs, but we re sow every three weeks. I pop it in the grrenhouse over winter and this year the parsley just kept on coming.

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    I would recommend peas.... yes I know they are not a herb, but if you have room near a fence then they will climb up and my boys and visitors all love eating them raw out of the garden. Sunflowers are very rewarding for children as they are big and afterwards you can make the heads into bird food, there's also a book (something like "growing sunflowers") that can go with the growing and discovering.
    I have herbs too and they are great for sensory activities. My method is just try and see what happens, learn with the children

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    We have thyme, basil, rosemary, lavender and mint, as well as a wall planters with salad crops and a veg bed with carrots, rocket, and a couple of other things.

    They love harvesting things themselves, last year their parents had a hard time getting them away from the lettuce because they just kept running back outside to get some more!

    I also have a few peonies in the garden, they've been watching them grow (they're really been shooting up lately!) and seeing the flower buds develop with great interest.

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    What kids recipes do you make with the herbs you've grown?

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    BBC Good Food - Healthy kids (or something like that, just google words to that effect and a couple of good websites come up). Jamie Oliver also has some good ideas for cooking with kids using herbs - tomato sauces, herby chicken drumstick dishes etc. Chives in cheesy omelettes are very quick and easy. Not a herb but cress is fab for quick results - my reception class once grew mustard cress and then made sandwich after sandwich with it, nothing else, just mustard cress and butter - they loved it. Of course you could do egg and cress or a salad. x

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    Home made flat bread - in any shape using cutters or sticks/ fingers with herbs and a little olive oil - they love to make this with us, we sometimes decorate shapes with different herbs, parsley for beard, chopped thyme for buttons etc with the 3/4 year old.

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    Quote Originally Posted by FloraDora View Post
    Home made flat bread - in any shape using cutters or sticks/ fingers with herbs and a little olive oil - they love to make this with us, we sometimes decorate shapes with different herbs, parsley for beard, chopped thyme for buttons etc with the 3/4 year old.
    Sounds gorgeous flora :-) Do you have any recipes you'd be happy to share?

 

 
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