We are now well into Spring, and the kiddos are starting to be released from school for summer vacation. Now is a great time to get your little ones involved with some nature-based crafts that will benefit both their creative spirits and the outside world! The following crafts can be made at home with materials found in the backyard, recycling bin, and even your local park.
June is one of my favorite months. While April and May bring the promise of buds (and sometimes May gardening is plain delightful), June brings flowers: showy rhododendron, brilliant iris, scented lilac, and delicate poppies burst into bloom. Across the country temperatures begin to rise and days get longer, meaning early sunrise watering sessions or late-night tea out on the deck.
Foraging for violets before spring is over? I am too. Before you go picking any, make sure you can positively ID violets and know how to harvest them (both the flowers and leaves are edible). Violets do have a few lookalikes (which aren't edible), but for the most part they're easy to identify.
Gardens are a peaceful place to enjoy all the colors, scents, and serenity that life has to offer. There’s nothing quite like the freedom of strolling through a lush and peaceful place where plants flourish all around you.
Out of all the spring plants you should forage for, wild chives are usually the first to start popping up. Once you train your eye to see them, you'll realize they're all over the place – in fields, in yards, even by roadsides. This hardy little plant is well worth knowing, especially since you can eat it!
How to Identify Wild Chives
With the turn of spring, the desire to garden increases—at least for me. For those living in cooler areas of the country, rainy days and fall’s leftover leaves might be reason enough to ditch the garden and stay indoors, but taking care of your garden now means bright, vibrant blooms all summer long. Fertilizing your plants is necessary to boost growth or blooms, specifically because most soil is severely depleted of nutrients following years of pesticides, toxins, and overuse.
We may not be deer or giraffes, but there are plenty of leaves out there that are edible but slip our notice. If you are trying to be an eco-conscious grower, a forager with a healthy larder, here’s some knowhow.
Miss the warm weather? Now's the time to get outdoors and enjoy it! Here are 10 ways to enjoy spring by heading outdoors.
After a long and cold winter, springtime is certainly a blessing. It brings warmer air, beautiful flowers, and baby animals into our lives. Unfortunately, spring flies away much too quickly, so it's important to really savor the season and utilize it as much as possible. It's easy to miss the bounty of spring when you have all the luxuries of the modern world at your fingertips.
