Nice little Craft Project for the Garden!
By thumb | May 16, 2008
Here’s another neat way to involve kids in the gardening this year…
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Gardening Picture Books
By thumb | May 16, 2008
Summertime is a great time to curl up with a good book—and to garden. Professor Brad of the Virginia Farm Bureau has some suggestions on good gardening books for children.
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New In Toolkit: Children & Flowers Part II
By thumb | May 16, 2008
Just added to the toolkit:
Children & Flowers, Part II:
Favorite Flowers & How to Grow Them
Members may access the toolkit here (you’ll need your username & password)
To find out more about our toolkit, click here
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New In Toolkit: Children & Flowers
By thumb | May 3, 2008
Part One of our “Children and Flowers” Unit Study is now available in our Toolkit!
In Part One: “How Flowers Work”, you’ll discover the amazing anatomy of flowers, how and why they move and grow, how they reproduce, why they attract insects, and all sorts of other fascinating facts.
Members may access the toolkit here (you’ll need your username & password)
To find out more about our toolkit, click here
Look for Part Two: “Favorite Flowers for Children” next week!
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New in Toolkit: The Man With Green Fingers
By thumb | May 3, 2008
Well, after much too long a delay, we’ve got more additions to our great Green Thumb Family toolkit!
The Man With Green Fingers - The Story of Luther Burbank
This is a great audio dramatization of the life of Luther Burbank, the horticulturist who will undoubtedly be remembered for all time as the great genius among plant breeders; it was he who made the science of “training plants to work for man” really practical. He made countless improvements in vegetables as well as in flowers; bigger and better potatoes, sweet corn that matures early in the season, luscious blackberries on thornless bushes, and freestone plums of excellent flavor and texture, are just a few of them.
This half hour audio dramatization of his story stars Lionel Barrymore as Burbank, and can be found as part of our “Green Thumb Family” toolkit!
Click here for more information on our Green Thumb Family Toolkit!
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Making a Butterfly Feeder
By thumb | April 3, 2008
It’s great to have a butterfly garden and watch those fluttering ‘rainbows of color’ flitting gracefully from flower to flower a short distance away from you. But here’s how you can get the butterflies to visit you really up close as you sit on your front porch or stand at the window.
You hang a butterfly feeder near to where you sit or stand. A butterfly feeder not only supplements the butterflies’ nectar supply but will also attract them to visit you really close. You can either purchase a ready-made butterfly feeder or even make one at home yourself. It’s quite simple.
Find a small empty jar with a lid. Puncture a hole into the lid. Now stuff the hole with cotton.
Mix 8 parts of water with 1 part of honey. (Some experts say sugar is more effective than honey, but frankly, both serve the purpose). Heat the water and honey mixture in a pot. Stir well. Then let the pot stand to cool off.
Once the mixture is cooled enough, pour it into the jar. Take some brightly colored cloth pieces. Cut and fold them into oval pieces, stick them like the petals of a flower to the rim of the jar.
Now hang the jar sideways, at the edge of your porch or at your window. Make sure the drops of honey-water mixture seep out through the cotton. Attracted by the bright cloth petals on the jar, the butterflies will soon come visiting and drink the ‘artificial’ nectar. (By hanging the jar sideways, you ensure that the butterflies have a perch to sit on while they drink).
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How Butterflies Eat
By thumb | April 3, 2008
Just like you drink through a straw, a butterfly drinks through its proboscis – which is like an in-built straw. A butterfly doesn’t have a visible, exterior mouth. So it cannot chew its food. Hence it must drink its food.
A caterpillar has a visible, exterior mouth and it chews on its food – the leaves. But once the caterpillar goes into its cocoon and emerges as a butterfly it loses its mouth and in its place is the proboscis – a long, tubular straw-like extension shaped like an antenna. When it’s not feeding, the proboscis is coiled inward.
Flowers position their pollen at their neck and at the tip of their petals. A butterfly searching for nectar first lands on the flower and tastes the nectar with its feet. Then it swings around and extends its proboscis down the tube to drink. The pollen sticks to the feet and the throat of the butterfly. When the same butterfly visits another flower, pollination takes place.
FLOWERS’ PASSAGEWAY TO THEIR NECTAR
Butterflies with short proboscises chose plants with short passageways to their nectaries’, such as lantana, phlox and verbena flowers. Whereas, skippers and swallowtail butterflies stretch their long proboscises down the long tubes of Beardtongue flowers to sip nectar. (Even hummingbirds with their long beaks like the nectar of these flowers).
FLOWER SHAPE
Generally, butterflies prefer plants that have lots of flowers clustered in a flat-top. Firstly, this ensures a ‘splash’ of color, drawing the butterfly to it. Secondly, with flat-topped cluster flowers, butterflies are assured of a good fill.
PETAL SIZE
Butterflies like flowers with large petals — it’s easier to land on them. Which means, they do not have to hang precariously, flapping their wings (something the hummingbird does so energetically) to drink the nectar. And as mentioned above, this helps the flower too in pollination.
A number of flowers are just for butterflies. The nectar of such flowers is at the base of tubes that are too narrow for other bugs to use.
Some butterflies are attracted by plants of some colors and even seem to avoid plants of other colors. The Silver Spotted Skipper likes lots of colors — red, pink, blue, purple, white – but not yellow flowers. Sulphur Butterflies, on the other hand, prefer yellow flowers.
There are about 24, 000 species of butterflies. Every one of them is different in looks, tastes, colors, shapes. How many can you attract to your garden?
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Decorating your Garden with other people’s “junk”
By thumb | March 31, 2008
Here’s a link to a nice post on the HomesteadBlogger Front Porch by Leslie Valeska on re-purposing “old junk” as decorations for your garden. I suspect your kids could REALLY get into this, so get creative!
http://homesteadblog.com/HSBFrontPorch/92365/
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Butterfly Week: Questions & Answers!
By thumb | March 31, 2008
Q&A for curious young minds…
How did butterflies get their name?
No real documented proof exists as to the origin of the name butterfly but it most likely could have been derived from the European Common Sulphur butterflies whose wings look ‘butter-yellow’.
What’s the life expectancy of a butterfly?
The smaller variety of butterflies live for just about a week or so but by and large an adult butterfly may live up to a month. Of course, predators, disease, habitat deterioration, pollution etc adversely affect the life span of butterflies. However, species like the Monarch, the Mourning Cloaks and the tropical heliconians live as much as nine months.
Why do we not see butterflies at night?
At night, or even during harsh, extreme weather conditions, butterflies perch on the underside of a leaf or between blades of grass or even in crevices of rocks and walls or other such shelter, fold their wings and go to sleep.
What is the difference between a butterfly and a moth?
Butterflies and moths are “cousins”. They belong to the insect family called Lepidoptera. The interesting fact is that though both moths and butterflies belong to the Lepidoptera (meaning scaly wings), butterflies constitute only 8% of the group whereas the remaining 92% is made up of moths.
Butterflies are generally very colorful and are active exclusively during the day. Whereas moths are generally dull and drab in color and are active during the night. However, there are exceptions. There are a few butterflies that are dull and drab and at the same time there are moths that are brilliantly colored and fly during the day.
Probably the best way to distinguish a butterfly from a moth is to look at their antennae. A butterfly antenna is basically a long, thin shaft with a hook-like club at the end. A moth however, has an antenna that’s a simple filament tapering to a point at the end or a much more complicated one with cross filaments.
Where would you find butterfly eggs?
Butterfly eggs will generally be found on plants – specific plants known as host plants – whose leaves provide nourishment for the just-hatched caterpillar to grow. The eggs might be on the top of the leaves or at the undersides or even at the axils of the leaves, maybe even the stalks of the plants.
What happens to butterflies in winter?
Butterflies, by and large, do not tolerate the cold. But to survive they must either spend the winter as caterpillars or as pupas. This way their warm and heavy skins protect them from the cold. In some species the eggs don’t hatch till after winter. There are very few adult butterflies who must endure the winter. Like the Tortoiseshells and Angel Wings. They must hence hibernate in holes in trees, in rock crevices, in man-made structures like barns, sheds, wells or even in caves.
More background and history on butterflies can be found in our “Butterflies In My Garden” ebook in the Green Thumb Toolkit!
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Butterfly Week: Fascinating Facts
By thumb | March 31, 2008
This week is “butterfly week” at Green Thumb Family! Kids love butterflies, and gardening with butterflies in mind is a wonderful learning and planning experience. So this week we’re going to learn about these delicate creatures and find out what you need to do to attract butterflies to your garden this spring and summer
So let’s start with some fascinating trivia tidbits to share with your kids…
A caterpillar grows to about 27,000 times the size it was when it first hatched out of its egg.
A full grown butterfly can be as tiny as 1/8th of an inch or even a gigantic 12 inches.
A butterfly’s wings are actually transparent. It’s their iridescent scales which overlap one another that give a butterfly its color.
Butterflies might be well over 3500 years old, for Egyptian frescoes at the Thebes show representations of butterflies.
There are about 24, 000 species of butterflies known to man.
The top speed that butterflies can fly is 12 miles an hour.
It’s a myth that the butterfly or caterpillar spins a cocoon. Actually, the growing caterpillar sheds its skin at least 5 times – through a process called molting; because unlike the human skin, their skin doesn’t expand or stretch to accommodate the body and therefore it must shed it and grow a new one – and once they shed their last skin a pupa is revealed, the outer surface of which hardens and forms the chrysalis which protects the caterpillar as they transform inside into a butterfly.
Butterflies need a body temperature of at least 86 degrees to fly.
Butterflies can see red, yellow and green colors.
Because butterflies need a very warm body temperature to take flights, which is more or less deficit in Antarctica, it’s the only continent where you won’t find a butterfly. As a matter of fact you won’t even find moths there.
The longest lifespan of an adult butterfly is that of the Brimstone Butterfly. 9-10 months.
A butterfly’s skeleton is on the outside of its body – exoskeleton. This protects it and keeps water inside its body so it doesn’t dry out.
Butterflies have six legs and feet. The taste sensors are located in the feet which explain why the butterfly must stand on its food to taste it.
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FREE this week for Green Thumb Family readers: Gardening For Wildlife
By thumb | March 24, 2008
We’ve got a great new freebie for all Green Thumb Family readers today… Teri Ann Berg Olsen’s brand new study, Gardening for Wildlife~How to Create a Backyard Habitat!
This illustrated, step-by-step guide will sell for $6 on Teri’s site, Knowledge House — but it is FREE to our readers when you join her informative newsletter. It is so new, it isn’t even listed on Teri’s site yet, but here’s a bit of what it is about…
* Do you enjoy hearing birds chirping in the trees, seeing butterflies fluttering among the flowers, and watching rabbits hopping through the grass?
* Do you like going on nature hikes and field trips?
* Do you prefer gardening or raising animals?
* Do you care about natural resources and the environment?
If you answered “yes” to one or more of the above questions, you will love this e-book. It explains how to create a wildlife habitat for birds, butterflies, and other creatures in your yard!
This illustrated step-by-step guide includes:
how to get started
planning checklist
required habitat elements
plant recommendations
maintenance methods
helpful habitat hints
scripture references
educational benefits
how to certify your habitat
related books for children
additional resources
“Gardening for Wildlife” makes a great homeschool project and/or family activity. Think of it as a year-round unit study!
This is a beautiful, well done resource that you will really enjoy… so be sure to get your copy before this freebie offer expires!
PS. The special code you’ll need to claim your free ebook after joining Teri’s list is: green
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Eating the Flowers
By thumb | March 22, 2008
Most people grow flowers strictly for their beauty, so you might not realize that there are a lot of flower varieties that can be eaten. But before you turn the kids loose to eat up your flower bed, know what is what:
Flowers can bring amazing flavor and color to salads, and make stunning decorations for cakes and other dishes. Flowers can also be used to make teas, and their flavor extracts can be used in cakes, frostings, candies, and other foods. Many flowers are also very good for you. Roses are very high in vitamin C, especially rose hips.
Nasturtiums and marigolds also have a decent amount of vitamin C, and dandelion flowers contain both vitamin C and vitamin A. If a flower isn’t poisonous, it’s considered technically edible, but not all edible flowers are tasty.
Just keep in mind that you should be absolutely certain what you’re eating, because some flowers have poisonous look-alikes! You should never eat flowers if you have hay fever, asthma, or other allergies.
Never eat flowers that have been sprayed with any type of pesticide. And be sure to choose only blossoms that haven’t wilted. Remember, even edible flowers should be eaten in moderate amounts.
Some people may still have minor reactions to large amounts of edible flowers. Some common flowering plants should NEVER be eaten. Lily-of-the-valley is highly toxic, for example. Other flowers that shouldn’t be eaten include hydrangeas, azaleas, daffodils, wisteria, lupines, hyacinths, castor beans, rhododendrons, sweet peas, clematis, bleeding hearts, oleander, and calla lilies.
This is just a partial list! Always carefully research any flower before eating it, and even check varieties of the same type of flower. For landscaping purposes, you should probably concentrate on perennials.
Now let’s look at some of the very best blooming plants and flowers for landscaping. Remember, these are all perennials, since our purpose is creating landscaping:
Dianthus comes in shades of red, white, and pink. It tastes similar to cloves.
Daylilies come in many colors and taste a bit like squash or asparagus.
Red clover has pink or red flowers that taste delicate and sweet.
Tulips are mild and sweet and come in many different colors.
Violets are slightly sweet, slightly sour. They come in pink, white, purple, and blue.
Chives have beautiful pink globes of blossoms that taste very much like onions.
Bee balm has pink, red, white, and lavender flowers that taste a bit like tea.
Hollyhocks are slightly bitter and come in many colors.
Borage tastes a lot like cucumbers, and comes in blue, purple, and lavender.
Perennials will continue to come back year after year, without the need for replanting each year. This is a very important part of landscaping, since landscaping should require only minimal maintenance.
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Edible landscaping? Why not!
By thumb | March 22, 2008
Some folks don’t want the responsibility of caring for a traditional garden… but it’s still possible to have a tasty yard that the kids can munch away in if you plant edible plants as your “landscaping”. In fact, edible landscapes require little more effort than traditional landscapes!
Some ideas to consider:
You can use many different types of edible plants to replace various aspects of traditional landscaping. You can use fruit trees in place of standard trees. Many perennial herbs can be used to replace ground covers and shrubs. And ornamental vegetables can be used in place of flowers, borders, or other accents.
You can also mix edible plants with other plants to form beautiful combinations. Some edible plants, especially herbs, make great additions to flower gardens. You can mix all kinds of plants together for different looks.
Curly parsley looks beautiful with many different types of plants. You can plant it with pansies, lobelia, strawberries, dusty miller, or dianthus. Sage and oregano are very beautiful plants, and make great low shrubbery. They look fantastic as edging in front of larger bushes.
Leaf lettuces look lovely planted in beds as accent areas. You can plant a bed of different colors and varieties of leaf lettuce, and then edge it with a border grass. There are several types of plants that have edible flowers.
Many of these plants also have other edible parts. They can look very striking as part of a landscape while they’re in bloom. Sugar snap peas have gorgeous white, pink, or purple flowers, and they produce delicious peas.
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New In Toolkit: Audio Program - Black Rust
By thumb | March 20, 2008
Added today to the Green Thumb Family Toolkit… the first of our AUDIO resources! (More coming soon!)
This half hour audio dramatization is a classic broadcast from 1941 called “Black Rust” — the true story of the man who literally saved the wheat belt of America’s grain lands in the late 1800s. This is a fascinating story, mixing some little known history and adventure and reminding us that there’s much more to our agricultural history than most of us realize.
If you already have access to the Toolkit resources, click here (you’ll need your username and password)
If you haven’t yet gotten our toolkit, click here
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Finding Easter in Walmart
By thumb | March 19, 2008
The Hardwick family of Creation Sensation were stuck in Walmart for a few hours after picking up a screw in a tire. This little Easter video is what come out of their boredom. Enjoy and remember!
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Money from the Garden for your “budding” entrepreneurs?
By thumb | March 18, 2008
Earlier, we posted some tips for kids interested in making money from gardening. Well, after a lot more searching on the topic, and plenty of dead ends and silly sites, we ran across one of the most practical, down-to-earth, nitty-gritty sites I’ve ever seen for turning your gardening and plant growing into some extra household income.
Mike McGroarty’s excellent Freeplants site has a huge amount of info on plant propogation, what kind of plants to grow if you are wanting to sell them, how to market your garden plants, and a whole pile of related interesting stuff. I particularly like the “One Minute Gardening Lessons” he sends out each week… very helpful and easy to turn into a quick “hands on” lesson for both you and the kids. The plans he has for some neat building projects there, such as potting benches and build-your-own greenhouses, also look very practical and “do-able”.
If you or your kids are at all interested in looking into the “extra income” side of gardening or just gardening tips in general, check it out. Great way to motivate budding entrepreneurs.
Mike McGroarty’s Freeplants site
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