When the weather has settled and it’s time to plant your seeds, prepare your beds, smoothing the lumps out. Dig shallow furrows and unroll your seed tapes into them. Cover them with about a ¼ inch of fine soil or sand. Water gently and keep the areas moist until your seedlings appear. They’ll be as straight and evenly placed as soldiers on parade. (That was a welcome surprise in my garden.)



This is a fun project you can tackle when you want to garden and the weather is too unsettled to work outside. It is also a good way to introduce children to gardening by letting them help make seed tapes. Children are then eager to see their flowers and veggies appear and to help harvest them. I think you’ll also find them eating produce willingly after they’ve helped to prepare the seeds for planting.



A fascinating project for older children is to take an opened sheet of newspaper (preferably the want ads) and let them write their name on it very large with magic marker. Make X’s on their name as far apart as the seeds should be placed. Short plants like alyssum, lobelia, dwarf marigolds and zinnias are good choices. Plant the sheets of paper where they want their names to appear in living color and you’ll be surprised at how willing they are to weed those beds!



