Happy Earth Day, Plant a Garden!

So after my long and tired rant yesterday, I thought I would spread some good cheer today with a tutorial. Now I'm not always the best at explaining how to do things, that's why I hesitated at posting tutorials before. But this project is easy, so I figured that even a dunce like me could explain it.

To celebrate earth day, my daughter and I decided to make a seed starting tray out of a recycled egg carton. Are you ready?

Recycled Egg Carton Garden

Gather your materials:



A paper egg carton with the top removed (save the top, we'll use it later)
Seed packets, here we have Marigolds, Daises, Sunflowers and Rudibeckas
Soil that has been mixed with water until it's damp
A spoon to scoop the soil
A Travel sized (ours was 1 oz) pump bottle

Step 1:



Use the spoon (we switched to a plastic one) to scoop dirt into each egg cup.

Step 2:



Add your seeds to the egg cups. The size of the seeds determined how many we added. You don't want to crowd them after all. The Rudibecka seeds were small so we added 5-6 per egg cup. The sunflower seeds were large so we added 2 per cup.

Step 3:



Add a bit more dirt on top of the seeds to cover. I told Kylie just to sprinkle some additional dirt on top. She eventually decided to use the spoon because she felt that she wasn't getting enough dirt on top just by sprinkling.

Step 4:



Water your garden. This is where I had a flash on inspiration. I filled the travel sized pump bottle with water and let her pump out some water onto her newly planted seeds. Brilliant right! This way she doesn't over water the plants. Two squirts is all you need. Sometimes I really surprise myself at how smart I can be. :)

Step 5:



Your done! This is where the top of the egg carton comes in. Place it under your newly planted seedlings to prevent too much seepage from the paper container getting on your table tops. Place in a sunny spot and let the children watch in amazement as their seeds grow.

Speaking of growing seeds. Check this out!



I just started these seeds last Friday and look! I'm so impressed with myself because normally I have an extremely brown thumb. Can I tell you the only thing I could grow before was aloe. And that's only because it's a cactus and if I forget to water it for a week or two...or three. It's not such a big deal. I can't wait until after Mother's Day! That's when they say that it's safe to plant things in the ground out here.