All you need are a couple canvases (construction paper would work too), masking tape, toddler paints and your child’s favorite painting tools (brushes, cars, hands, feet, whatever!).

Step 1: Use the masking tape to outline shapes or words on your canvas. I made a heart on one and spelled out “Oma” on the other.

Step 2: Put down a drop cloth and let your child go to town! I let the munchkin choose 4 paint colors, which I then squirted into a muffin tin that’s reserved for crafts. After painting with his truck for a bit (painting with toy cars is still big around here), he decided to paint his feet and dance around on the canvases. Why not?

Adding a few finishing touches with his paint brush.

Step 3: Let the paint dry completely, then gently peel off the masking tape. That’s it! Beautiful paintings fit for gift giving.

Maybe an idea for Father’s Day? I bet there are lots of dads and grandpas out there who would love these for the office!

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The munchkin caught on to this one pretty quick and it’s since become one of our favorite car ride songs. I’d say it comes in a close second after “Put Your Finger in the Air.” :)

Ten in the Bed Lyrics

There were ten in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.

Nine!

There were nine in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.

Eight!

There were eight in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.

Seven!

There were seven in the bed and the little one said,
“Roll over, roll over”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.

Six!

There were six in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.

Five!

There were five in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.

Four!
There were four in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.

Three!

There were three in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.

Two!

There were two in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.

One!

There was one in the bed and the little one said, “I’m lonely…”

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We also made some discoveries today: First, you see that cool looking picture up there? I took it by putting my iPhone camera up to a kaleidoscope and pointing it at some of our plants. Cool huh?! You can see a larger version of it on Instagram.

Next, we found a robin’s nest at the garden center! We were looking for a strawberry plant to add to our container garden and right there, in the middle of all the strawberry plants, a robin decided to build her nest and lay three beautiful blue eggs. We’ve been reading a book about a mouse that discovers a robin’s egg and goes on a quest to find the egg’s mommy, so the munchkin was pretty thrilled to see a nest in real life.

After admiring the nest for a bit we finally selected an everbearing strawberry plant for our snacking garden. Everbearing strawberries work really well in containers and produce berries until the first frost (unlike June-bearing plants, which only produce berries once, usually in June). Needless to say, we are super excited about this addition. That’s going to be some first-class snacking right there.

We made one more addition to our garden: a Jack Be Little pumpkin plant. These plants produce miniature pumpkins that will mature right around September. So while they aren’t an edible member of our garden, these pumpkins are going fall into eager little hands just in time for Autumn decorating. If you want to plant some container pumpkins too, other good varieties are Wee-B-Littles and Baby Bears, though Baby Bear pumpkins do need a bit more room than the others because they like to spread. :)

If you want to know more about our container garden or check out my favorite gardening books be sure to read: Our Toddler Snacking Garden.

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• About
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The idea for a snacking garden came from one of my favorite books on gardening. It’s called “Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots” and in it author Sharon Lovejoy shared the concept of an edible garden filled with tasty treats that kids could pluck off the plant and pop right into their mouths. I took that idea and ran with it, modifying her garden map so that it would be doable as a balcony container garden.

Some of our edibles are just starting to sprout but already the munchkin loves his garden. Our balcony is truly turning into a little piece of heaven.

1. Tomato and cucumber plants. 2. Sage. 3. Basil. 4. Purple basil. 5. Purple pansies. 6. Spinach. 7. Red pansies surrounded by carrot seedlings. 8. Mint. 9. Lavender. 10. Rosemary. 11. A tiered container holding parsley, oregano and thyme.

The pansies were added to the garden mainly for aesthetic purposes. I wanted that extra pop of color!

1. Purple pansy plant surrounded by chard and spinach. 2. Tomato plants surrounded by salad seedlings. 3. Sungold cherry tomato plant surrounded by sugar peas and snap beans (these haven’t sprouted yet).

Garden-to-Mouth Snackables:
- Carrots
- Snap beans
- Sugar peas
- Sungold cherry tomatoes
- Cucumbers
- Tomatoes
- Salad greens
- Spinach
- // Edit: Since publishing this post we’ve added strawberries to this list! Check it out.

If you want to setup a snacking/herb garden of our own, here are some tips based upon our own experience.

1. Choose your plants together.

First, figure out how much space you have, what size containers you can fit in that space and how much sun your plants are likely to get. When we went to the garden center I had a little sketch of our balcony along with diagrams of our containers and their dimensions. With that information in hand we were able to select plants that would thrive on our balcony and that could also be combined in containers. You can pair plants that like the same kind of soil/moisture and can also take advantage of deep/shallow root patterns to maximize your growing space. For instance, a tomato plants (deep roots) can share a large container with lettuce plants (shallow roots).

Once I knew what plants would do well in our space the munchkin helped me select seed packets and “baby plants” to bring home. As he gets older he’ll be able to take an even more active role in selecting what plants we grow.

2. Plant your garden together and let your child help take care of it.

Yes this will be a messy process but hey, it’s just dirt right? And what better way to encourage little ones to eat their veggies than to let them grab a seed, press it into the dirt and watch it transform into a plant they can eat? My son loves pointing to the seeds that have begun to sprout and shouting “We are going to eat them!” He’s also the one who is in charge of watering the plants and keeping an eye out for new seedlings.

3. Add some magic.

I wanted to add a bit of magic to our garden so each of our containers is decorated with something special. Rocks and acorns gathered during our hikes in the hills beside Lake Champlain, a pinwheel that swirls in the wind, a piece of driftwood we found on the lake shore. I also found some neat stuff online and at the garden store:

Clockwise from the top left: Hand painted fox rock by BillieRocks; garden gnome house nestled amidst the spinach; turtles on a log that glow in the dark after being charged by the sun; an “owl rock” from our garden center. We have 5-6 of these animal rocks scattered throughout the garden.

4. Give your child their own place to dig in the dirt and play.

It is nearly impossible to prevent a little boy from digging in the dirt so I setup a little “mud box” with dinosaurs and his favorite plastic construction vehicles. It fits neatly beneath his Step2 water table and lets him play with dirt as much as he likes without disturbing the plants.

You’ll notice I included an image of him sweeping in the collage above and that’s because he also likes sweeping up the dirt after he’s made a mess. (Score!) He pretends the dustbin is a bulldozer and make all sorts of vehicle noises while he’s sweeping. As you can see below, his water table also gets a fair amount of use when we’re on the balcony. He likes to water his plants with water from his table.

5. Don’t expect perfection.

I’ve been gardening in containers for about three years but this is the first time the munchkin and I have created a garden together. This is the most important lesson I’ve learned: relax and don’t expect perfect results.

Whenever we planted seeds only about 60% of them ended up in the dirt. The rest were flung around the place when the munchkin discovered how fun it was to see them bounce on the ground. When we potted plants, half of the dirt ended up in a dump truck. And when he waters his garden? Without fail some of the water is poured poured out so he can splash around in it or just laugh hysterically. All of this is OK. The last thing I want to do is constantly be telling him “no” while we’re in the garden. I want it to be positive experience that becomes something special we do together every year. :)

My favorite gardening books!

If you want to learn more about gardening with kids or setting up a container garden, below are my favorite books:

Happy gardening!

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