We love gardening in Cart Mill and the weather never stops us getting out to see what we have growing in our garden. As it has been a little cold recently, we took a trip into the greenhouse to see if any of our seeds had popped up through the soil and they had! We checked that everything had enough water to drink and looked to see if any of the plant pots needed turned round – did you know that plants grow towards the light so sometimes they can look a little squint when they start to grow?

With everything looking okay, we thought we would test out our sense of smell. We have some herbs growing in the greenhouse at the moment so we each got to pick a small leaf and rub it around in our fingers. Then we had to take a big, deep sniff and guess what we could smell – it was mint! It was just like toothpaste.

We then moved outside to see what was growing in the planters. We have some lovely spring flowers growing but we suddenly spotted some big green leaves – is it cabbage?

No, on closer inspection, we discovered it was rhubarb. We wondered if there was anywhere we could use some rhubarb – I know, we could give it to Gail and she could help us make some rhubarb muffins! So, we decided to pick some – but not too much, to hand in to the baking area. It was quite hard to pull but we tugged and we twisted and CRACK, out the stalk of rhubarb came. After thinking about it, we decided that two stalks would be enough.

By now it was raining quite heavily so we thought we better go inside. Although, we had one last use for our rhubarb, an umbrella!

Gardening with children has so many benefits, which is why we are so fond of promoting it at Cart Mill. Benefits include: improving your mood, gardening reduces stresses and improves your overall mood; it is a great form of exercise, gardening is physical and can keep children active; understanding nature, gardening allows children to get close to worms, bees, flowers etc; stimulate senses, gardening helps us use all our senses; gardening can promote healthier eating, children also get an understanding of where food comes from and how it looks in its natural form; it is cheap, gardening is a great way to learn together with very little cost, even if you don’t have outdoor space, you can grow tomatoes or peppers from seed at your window; It is fun! The most important part of gardening, you can explore, investigate and see thing happen – sometimes you just need to be a little patient!