Here’s our recommendation of the 10 best vegetables which you and your children can grow from seed. We’ve chosen them for their variety in colour, flavour, shape and seasonality. This selection of vegetable seeds will teach your children about how a seed germinates, the conditions that they need to grow into plants and how to harvest the different parts of the plants for food.
1) CHRISSIE CRESS
You can’t beat cress for a first time growing and eating experience.
Sow: Any time of the year, on tissue, cotton wool or compost on a windowsill
Growing: Make sure the seeds are kept moist.
Harvest: 1 week after sowing
Eat: Be ready to share this new mind-blowing flavour experience with your children, homegrown cress is hot and peppery and can be a bit of a shock. Our favourite is to mix it in an egg or cheese sandwich.
2) MINGO MUNGBEAN
Sow: Any time of the year in a jam jar
Growing: Soak the beans for 12 hours then rinse morning and night, draining well.
Harvest: The bean sprouts will be ready to eat in 5 days.
Eat: Crunchy bean sprouts can be added to salads or tossed into stir fries. You can sprout other beans and seeds like chick peas and lentils learn more
3) BRUNO BROADBEAN
Sow: Late Autumn or Feb/March, you can start them in news-paper pots then plant them in the ground.
Grow: Blackflies love the tender top leaves, when there are some flowers on the stem nip out the top, before they infest.
Harvest: Large pods, 10 weeks later
Eat: Top leaves are eaten like greens, small pods can be eaten whole or pop the beans raw from the pods. Also delicious in fritters, or as a paste on toast.
4) PC PEA POD
Sow: In a seed tray in Spring or direct in ground in May and June
Growing: Peas need twigs to grow up, clinging to them with their tendrils.
Harvest: Mange-tout peas are great for kids as they eat the whole pod often straight from the plant. Round peas need to be left until the pods swell and then popped from the pods.
Eat: Salads, stir fries, boiled with a sprig of mint….so many ways.
5) BABS BEETROOT
Sow: From Spring through to Summer, sow every couple of weeks so you have a supply of tiny beetroots fresh from the garden.
Growing: Sow direct in the ground well spread out.
Harvest: About 60-90 days later you should find a golf ball sized root.
Eat: Wash the root and leaves, cook in boiling water. Tiny beets take 10mins, older woodier beets 30mins at least. They’ll stain everything pinky purple so be warned. Delicious in a salad with roasted nuts.
6) CARLA CARROT
Sow: April, May in sandy soil. They are going to around 10 weeks to be ready.
Growing: Plant near onions and chives or in raised pots to prevent carrot fly.
Harvest: After about 10 weeks you should be able to pull a small carrot from the ground.
Eat: Endlessly useful, carrot sticks for picnics, lunches and snacks, grated to add sweetness and colour to salads and soups.
7) RUDI RADISH
Sow: 1cm deep direct in ground in rows. From April-May then August-September.
Growing: Keep moist
Harvest: Pull when small and crisp
Eat: Normally not cooked but ideal for dips and snacks.
8) RIO ROCKET
Sow: Under a cloche or on a windowsill from February onwards, direct in the garden from mid-March-May then July-September
Growing: If you have a greenhouse you can get a great crop throughout the Winter, if not grow it on your windowsill for a few leaves that will add a fresh garnish to Winter dishes.
Harvest:The ultimate cut and come again crop, pinch off the leaves and more appear. When it goes to seed eat the flowers.
Eat: Salads, sprinkle over pizzas or chop into a paste for pasta.
9) SANGHITA SPRING ONION
Sow: Straight into ground. Best in a row as looks like grass to start with.
Grow: Keep well watered and keep sowing every month.
Harvest: Thin rows by pulling the tiny onions and leave the rest to grow bigger.
Eat: Raw or cooked onions add a tongue tingling taste to salads, stir fries or chop and stir into potatoes or other root vegetables for added zing.
10) DESIREE POTATO
Sow: Potatoes are not grown from seed but from an old potato (seed potato).
Grow: Plant 3-4 seed potatoes in 30cm of compost in an old compost bag that is rolled down and has drainage holes pierced in it. When green shoots appear at the top add more compost to the top unrolling the bag up to 60cm
Harvest: Wait until the bag top is covered with leaves and perhaps a flower. Tip up the bag and search the compost for new potatoes. See who gets the biggest and the smallest.
Eat: Boiled, mashed, fried, roasted, always cooked. Try this ‘Potato Pizza’ recipe.
Make and wear masks of your favourite fruit and vegetable characters from Seed City. This is perfect for a crafty classroom activity, family fun on a rainy days or an arty birthday party.
Albon Asparagus Mask PDF
Skills: Observation and identification of vegetables. Colouring in and craft. Assembly of pieces.
Print out the PDFs to help you with your creation.
We recommend taking a look at the vegetable or fruit of the mask you are making to see the different textures and colours.
If you mount your mask on cardboard it will lasts longer and you can collage it in different materials.
Carla Carrot Mask PDF
Sanghita Spring Onion PDF
Stella Strawberry Mask PDF
Get cooking with your Jack-O-lantern and make some delicious meals.
We are always pleased to get your photos. Today we were sent these of 2 Seed Agents foraging.
Foraging means finding food in the wild and Autumn is the best time to forage.
Delicious! Evie can not resist the blackberry taste.
Have you foraged? if so please share your pics with us. send them to [email protected].
Evie and Leila please take a picture of what you make with these luscious blackberries.
The bramble is scratchy but the fruit is luscious!
Autumn is the time to find blackberries, elderberries, crab apples, damsons and plums in the hedgerow.
Foraging in the autumn hedgerow.
What will you make with what you pick?
Leila thinks there is enough already
Calling all Seed Agents! Grow a giant bean and win a great prize.
Do you think you can grow the longest bean this Summer?
Wow, Here's a long runner bean.
Here is what to do.
Search out some runner bean seeds, did you save some from last year? Or has your family or neighbour got a few?
FREE SEEDS. Our friends at Big Barn Stores are supporting the competition by giving you free seeds.
Look on the map for the rosette on the icon
It couldn’t be easier. To find your local seed supplier, go to Big Barn, type in your post code and look for the rosette on icons on the BigBarn local food map. Give them a call to make sure they are participating and wonder along and ask (politely) for your free seed!
Here’s some helpful hints:
- Runner beans like to grow indoors during May. Keep them warm and moist and you will see them start to poke through.
- At the end of May erect some poles in a sunny position for the plants to grow up. Each plant can share a pole with one other plant. If you make wigwam with your poles they’ll keep firm.
- Carefully plant out your bean plants. Dig a hole a little bigger than the plant next to a pole. Place your bean seedling in, fill around with soil and press down gently.
- Look after your plants, if the weather turns cold at night wrap them in newspaper or fleece.
- Water them if there is no rain
- feed them with chicken manure, worm cast or homemade compost
- As they grow train them up the poles… there are always one or two who twirl around another beans pole or just swish around in the air, be gentle and show them where to go.
Beans need bees
- The bees pollinate the flowers so that they become beans. Encourage bees into your garden with wild flowers.
When to pick
At first your beans will not be that long but they will be very tasty so eat them up. The more you pick the more you will get. Keep watering and feeding, watering and feeding.
Growing a long one
- Don’t let all your beans grow long, because your poor plant will be exhausted. Choose one or two to let grow long.
- When you see a really, really long one keep your eye on it (you don’t want Mum, Dad or your greedy Gran to pick it and eat it when y
Grandpa Swede Needs Your Help!
Down at the Seed City allotment Grandpa Swede has been so busy planting lots of lovely new vegetables that he can’t even tell his carrots from his potatoes!
Your Mission Seed Agents is to design your very own vegetable row markers so that you don’t repeat Grandpa Swede’s mistake.
There are many different things you can use to make your row markers – wooden lollipop sticks, milk cartons, tofu containers, yoghurt pots…the list is endless!
Secret Seed Society have given you a head start in your ‘What Will I Be’ Carla Carrot pack, and also your ‘Bong Bong Bongity Bong’ Rudi Radish pack as they have 2 lollipop sticks ready and waiting for you to decorate!
If you need more row markers or feel like being creative then follow the instructions below and you’ll have your very own personalised row markers in no time!
What Materials You Will Need :
– wooden lollipop sticks or the flat side of your chosen recycled plastic
– Marker pens, Crayons, Colouring Pencils or Paints
– Scissors
How to Make a Row Marker :
Step 1 : Find a Grown Up and search through your Recycle Bin for anything plastic.
You could use the flat side of milk cartons, tofu containers, yoghurt pots, or anything else that is strong.
Step 2 : Get a marker pen and draw out a template of your row marker on one side of the plastic – make sure one end of your marker is pointed so that it can dig into the ground. It should measure approximately 12cm.
Step 3 : Once you have your template you can decorate your row markers with lots of bright colours! Try drawing pictures of the vegetables, or writing the name of the Seed City Character you are growing!
Step 4 : Next you need a Grown Up to help you cut out your row marker with a pair of scissors.
Step 5 : Now you’re ready to stick your personal
.jpeg?picon=3496)
