This is an archived web presentation from the NMNH Education Department and is no longer being maintained. For questions about this site please contact: education@si.edu.

Winter Activities:
Design Your Garden

To plan the size and shape of each garden portion, refer to seed catalogs and garden reference books for the space each plant needs to grow. Plants can be planted in straight rows or in raised beds about a yard (one meter) square or of similar shape, each containing one kind of plant. The areas within raised beds are more compact than areas within rows and lend themselves to innovative shapes and intervening walkways. Consequently, raised beds may be more useful for gardens that are being worked by more than one class or for classes in which each child has a plot of ground to tend. We were careful to plan walkways through and around the plots so we wouldn't walk on top of roots or seedlings.

[Student with climbing plants]
Abingdon Tip: We asked children to problem-solve ways to conserve space in the garden so everything they wanted to plant would fit. Some of our space-saving suggestions.

Use sunflower stalks or cornstalks as poles for climbing plants like beans. For some reason sunflower stalks work better.
Use tomato cages to grow vine plants such as beans or cucumbers.

Once you have decided on the garden layout, use a shower curtain liner, painter's plastic drop cloth, or other large piece of plastic and an indelible marker to make a large-scale map of the three sections of the garden. Indicate on the curtain the location of each plant or row of plants in the garden. Students then note plants on the scale drawings of the garden they made in the fall.

Begin obtaining seeds from catalogs, local nurseries, or your home. Some plants take so long to produce a crop that they must be started indoors while the weather is still cold. Tomatoes, green peppers, eggplants, and flowers including petunias and impatiens fall into this category.

Plants can be started in egg cartons, peat-moss pots, of which one popular brand is called Jiffy Pots, the bottom half of school-lunch milk cartons, or biodegradable pots made from newspapers. Garden centers have seed starting soil formulated for sprouting seeds. Start seedlings eight to ten weeks before the last frost date in your area.

A sample garden layout
(with the three different sections highlighted)
[Sample Plan]

GO BACK

Send questions, comments, and corrections to the webmaster.

Winter Activities: Design Your Garden

Winter Activities:
Design Your Garden