Grow veg with your children there is no excuse

[Keepdlingwhatyourgutsays]

I can not tell you how much fun it is to grow plants with your children and how good it is for your own self. Currently living in what i call my concrete garden (slabs and gravel) but managing to grow veg. Its a must please try it. Even if its water cress

OP these are the raised beds we made from tile/slab crates. They were free (being chucked away by someone who'd had a patio laid). They're like pallets with lots of gaps so we covered them in membrane and then wrapped in willow screening. They now have trellis behind them and will house peas and beans this year.

We have got our toms on the windowsill but there not doing much I might move them and off to buy a rhubarb tomorrow and maybe some runner beans.

We Also have some of the wilkos grow in a can things aswell £1 each weve got the strawberry one just sprouted there good if space is lacking they sit on a shelf by the boiler.

although op we do love gardening like your self but there are loads of reasons for people not to want to or even be able to.....

I think the OP is just feeling enthusiastic about growing food with her kids. No need for all of the argy bargy really. Title could be worded in a less knobby way for sure but no need to pile in & give the OP a fucking good kicking

My tip from my own very poorly maintained concrete garden: an old water butt (my dad gave me his old one) cut in half and used to grow potatoes!

O no that sucks. we rent so might have to move in a few months which is why im hoping for an allotment but they take ages. Im sticking to small things at the minute that grow quickly.
Butter nut sqaush and rubarb i wouldnt know where to start. Im on the basic easy things at the minute. Hope it goes well. Its a shame there's not a site where you can see and show whats being grown.
People are growing things in all sorts its great :) bet they tasted nice to

We grew carrots in a bucket too.

Rhubarb is easy but needs space. Butternut squash not so easy IME.

Potatoes work in old compost sacks too: instead of earthing up you just roll up the sacks and fill them up a bit higher with compost.

I've grown just about everything in crates, boxes and sacks (I had no garden) and even sweetcorn worked. The effort of watering was pretty extreme though, so it's environmentally suspect.

Come on Tartan, give it up. Whilst I'm reluctant to get dragged in to the argument there is rudeness coming from multiple directions here.

I know there are a few poster for whom this post has touched a nerve. Of course it doesn't matter too much whether you grow fruit and veg with your children but I do think it is so important to try to connect children with nature. Being mature deficit is a thing. Maybe it might going to a PYO, going to play in a wood or perhaps planting some seeds. You could even grow some herbs from seed indoors. I do see that the OP came across a bit patronising but it was well intentioned! We all want the best for our children.

Your op does come across as rather smug . Would you like my 9yr old who pulls up plants and destroys them? That's a good reasons for not gardening with children.

I would love to do this but worry that I will become inundated with vegetables that will not get eaten. This happened a couple of years ago when I naively bought a tomato plant and it absolutely flourished. Ended up with 100s of tomatoes which eventually ended up all over the patio rotting

Oh I see op is just going to pretend she's not reading some of these posts.

Can you imagine if I started a thread entitled: "please breastfeed your babies - no excuses!"

We've been on the waiting list for a few years, no luck

More communities should come together and build neighbourhood gardens, in my old town we had a beautiful one run by mainly retired volunteers with lots of time to spare and arthritis to keep at bay. I miss it.

You've inspired me to give it another go Cloud and OP. It was impossible to grow anything in our old garden as it was completely overrun with slugs ( the lawn would be black with them when it rained! 🤢) We moved house this year and I haven't spotted any slugs here so hopefully I might have some success this time.

Pies posts are the best thing I have seen in a long time

Cloud im getting very jealous now i dont think i can take anymore photos its like looking at all the nice things on pinterest.
My tomoatoes are doing nothing too. I really wouldnt know where to start with rubarb or if id eat it. I dont mind the sweets but i remeber my nan cooked rubarb once and i cant say i liked it. They is very likely to have just been her cooking though
I might have to try that Mavis. Potatoes you just fill with more dirt as they grow don't you or as the stem comes through.

Growing veg is boring as shit anyway
when i was a kid we had a market garden and every Saturday morning us poor kids were forced to weed the fucking thing.
You have a little play at it in your toy garden, and, tell us how marvellous it is. No.Doing it for real is hard, cold , boring dirt work.

I don't have window sills.

I do have an allotment, I love it, I find it a great stress reliever.

My son was interested for a year, when we were clearing the ground and he could chuck mud around and play with a hosepipe. Then he got a wii. Now he just likes to come and pick the strawberries. Which isnt much help to me.

Some people love growing stuff. Other people don't or have other priorities, interests, pressures on their time. They don't need an excuse not to.

I’m really upset by what the op has said and she hasn’t even had the decency to apologise get a grip love.