Grow Your Own

Veggie Garden!

Canadale Nurseries Kids Club E-Newsletter

Our purpose is to give you some fun and rewarding garden-related activities

Hey Kids,

I hope you had fun last weekend planting Radish Heads! Only a couple more weeks and your radishes will be ready for eating!!

This weekend at Kid's Club we're continuing to focus on vegetable gardens by leaning about companion plants. Companion plants compliment or assist the growth of other plants. There are a lot of companion plants for vegetable gardens, but perhaps my favourite (and most happy) is the SUNFLOWER!

Stay tuned next week as we continue to learn about where our food comes from and how to grow it ourselves.

Sunflower Pots

With the arrival of more chilly weather this past week, we thought we needed something fun and sunny to plant at Kid's Club, so we decided that this week we will be planting SUNFLOWERS!

While you technically can eat sunflower seeds, their big happy blooms add colour and height to veggie gardens too! We will also make a sunflower marker so we remember where we planted them when we move them outside.

Kid's Club runs Saturday & Sunday this weekend from 10am - 4pm.

Important Things to Know About Sunflowers

~We are planting Mammoth Russian Sunflowers! They are easy to grow! Plant seeds in well-drained soil and full sun. Plant them about 1/4-1/2" deep and 3-4" apart.

~Move them outside in late May when there's no chance they will feel frost. When you plant them outside, make sure you plant them about a foot apart.

~Keep plants evenly watered and fertilize twice during the season for best results.

~Mammoth Russian sunflowers are giant plants with a huge, single yellow bloom on each tree trunk-like stem. The flowers can get up to 35cm wide and the trunks can grow up to 3m high. They may need to be staked because they can get so big and heavy!

~Once your sunflower has bloomed, the head will turn brown. Once this happens, you can cut off the flower head and hang it to dry. You can use the dried seeds in a bird feeder (this is the BEST variety for the birds!) or roast them to eat yourself (they are the BEST variety for roasting). If you decide not to cut off the flowerheads you can leave them in the garden for the birds to eat. You could also consider saving some of the seeds and planting them next year to get more sunflowers!