Can you feel it? There is a quickening of the earth, and spring is finally here. In Pennsylvania, which is where our family lives, everyone who has a veggie garden is planting their peas. Our spring bulbs are poking three inches out of the cool dark ground and we are thrilled that all-too-brief spring has sprung.

In our home, with four children under the age of nine, we love the abundance of spring. All the bright colors and the first really warm days fill all of us with an excess of energy that begs to be burned off in the outdoors.  If you’re taking the kids outside, you might as well enlist their help with the garden chores, and throw in a few fun garden activities to boot. 
The following are a few things that keep us busy in the month of April.

Make our animal friends feel at home: Spring is a perfect time to set up homes to invite animal friends into our gardens. Build new birdhouses. Make sure they’re functional as well as beautiful. Different types of bird prefer different accommodations. You can find information online about size, shape and placement in your yard. As far as decorating, the sky’s the limit. Turn your kids loose with environment-friendly paints, or glue on wooden shapes, available at any craft store. A word of caution here: Much to my little girls’ dismay, birds will not make a home in a glittery, bejeweled or otherwise shiny birdhouse. Keep the décor simple and natural, and you’ll have houseguests in no time.

Do you have any semi-broken terracotta pots in your basement, garage or gardening shed? If you have one that has a good-sized break at the rim, you have the perfect toad’s house. Simply turn the broken pot upside down so that the break becomes a doorway and wait for Mister Toad to move in. Obviously, if you are blessed with only intact terracotta pots, you can cover the pot with a soft cloth and very gently tap a hole into the side of the pot to make a door. Remember, safety first, so wear some protective eyewear and gloves. This is grown-up only work. After you renovate your pot, the kids can paint the it.  We use a ready made toad house we bought at a pet store for our late fire belly toad, Roco. It works just as well in the garden as it did in the aquarium.

Once you have lodging for your local critters, it’s time to think about food. If you didn’t start a birdfeeder over the winter, now is as good a time as any to get one and keep it going, as the birds will come to expect a source of food in your yard. You can get a very fancy store bought birdfeeder, or make your own out of recycled materials. Either way, if you have little ones, hang the feeder at a height they can see the birds and refill the feeder. It’s a fun, if messy chore that even toddlers can handle.  If your family really loves watching birds, you can hang a feeder outside your kids’ bedroom windows. Nothing beats waking up to the sounds of birdsong.  Don’t forget our furry friends. Squirrel feeders are very easy to install, and children love to watch squirrels.

Starting Seeds: It’s time now, and in the next few weeks, to get a head start on late spring and summer seedlings. Seeds are a cheap thrill if ever there was one, and fascinating for kids of all ages (many adults, including myself are fascinated by seeds). You have a couple of options for starting your little green babies. It’s the easiest thing in the world to head to a local greenhouse or garden center and buy a seed starting kit, complete with peat pellets, pan and lid. The lid acts as a tiny greenhouse and keeps the seedlings at the right temperature, and the peat pellets keep the mess to a minimum.  You can recycle the pan from year to year, replacing only the peat pellets for a very small cost. 

If you prefer to make your own seed starting pan, you can grab an old jelly roll pan and fill it with an inch of soil. When the soil looks dry, water with a spray bottle and keep a close eye on the moisture level. You want your soil damp, never dry, but never wet either. Spray bottles seem to have an appeal to all kids, at least all kids that I know, and they’ll love watering their seedlings and watching them grow.

What to plant? First you need to know the date of the last frost in your area. Then read the back of your seed packet, and follow directions. Ask gardening neighbors for tips on what seeds to start when, and if you can’t find any, call your County Extension Service. Here in Southeast Pennsylvania (Zone 6), our last frost date is May 15. Reading my seed packets will tell me whether to start my seeds indoors six, eight, or twelve weeks before the last frost. You can start bringing spring seedlings like geraniums and pansies outside during the day on days when the temperature is over 50 degrees, but make sure to bring them inside before night falls.  As the temperatures warm up, you can begin leaving your hardy seedlings out overnight, and bring your summer seedlings out during daylight.  You can transplant your seedlings to your garden or larger pots when they are about three inches high.
Kids get a kick out of growing from seed. It’s cheap, fun, easy, and -don’t tell them- educational.

Winter Clean-up Day:  I know what you’re thinking. There’s no way you’re going to get your kids to clean up the yard, but hear me out.  Take the kiddies out on a warmish Saturday and get that yard tidied up. Make it a picnic party and bring out some sandwiches and snacks for the first al fresco meal of the season.  Have the kids gather up the sticks, rocks, old pinecones and any other of nature’s debris and pile it in one area of the yard. Then offer wheelbarrow rides on your newly-cleaned grass.  At the end of the day, turn your kids loose on the pile of sticks and stones and see what their creativity can do.

Supply the basic crafting items, earth-friendly glue, paints and decorations and let their imaginations run wild. Pour yourself a cup of herbal tea and enjoy spring and your kids’ childhood, for both are all too fleeting.

 

Laura Sweet is a mother, artist, performer and entrepreneur living outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.