Green Thumbs: A Kid's Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening
INTRODUCTION Welcome to the wonderful world of gardening With a few seeds some water and soil you'll be growing plants of your own in no time As you enjoy the beauty of watching your plants grow a leaf at a time you will learn about nature about where living things come from Gardening is a hobby that every one in your family can take part in and once you learn how to make things grow it s an activity you can have fun with for the rest of your life An outdoor garden is a great way to get exercise and fresh air You can be in the fresh air and imagine what it's like to live on a farm This doesn't mean that you have to have a backyard to be a full fledged gardener If you have a windowsill with plenty of sun light you have most of what you need to start planti ng When you are the gardener you can choose what you want to grow Try growing some healthy food No tomato from the grocery store is as tasty as the one that grew right before your eyes Or you might want to plant flowers It s fun to watch a little green sprout blossom into a colorful flower You're the one who decides you can do both Whether your garden is in a plot in the yard or a pot by a window whether it's a bean plant or an African violet you'll learn about how plants live and
grow and you'll enjoy some good things to eat and pretty flowers to gaze at By planting a garden you'll discover many exciting things about nature right away how the weather temperature and seasons affect all living things how living things come out of seeds and soil how the birds earthworms bees and toads help in the gar den how our whole environment works together like an amazing puzzle So get up and get ready to plant As budding gar deners we're going to get in touch with the world we live
PLANTING BASICS Plants need soil water sun and air in order to live and grow Minerals in the soil dissolve in water and the plant roots suck them in this is the plant s food The water travels up the plant stem and out to the leaves In the leaves the plant mixes this food with carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is in the air The plant leaves use the minerals and water from the soil and carbon dioxide from the air to grow A special substance called chlorophyll klor oh fill is in the leaves Chlorophyll and sunlight together make it all happen It's truly amazing what plants can do The best part is that while the plant does all this mixing and growing it gives off oxygen from its green leaves Oxygen is what people and animals breathe and it's very important for them to survive You can see why we depend on plants Plants grow from seeds even towering trees started from seeds Each seed contains the beginning
of a new plant and enough food to start its life As the plant inside the seed grows it pushes its way out of the seed It needs air and water in order to do this As soon as the tiny plant gets roots it needs more food than was stored inside the seed Now it is ready to take food from the soil It does this through tiny hairs that grow on the roots The food in the soil dis solves in water and passes into the root hairs From there it moves from the roots up into the stem and out to all the parts of the
