Although
I'm sure some of you won't believe me, I have actually spent November
doing more than just crafting fake moustaches. For one thing, I have
been busy with the pre-school gardening club. Over the last couple of weeks the children and I have been harvesting seeds to store in their handmade seed packets.
OK, so "handmade seed packets" may be a slightly grand term for
finger painted flowers on envelopes, but they work just fine and are a
useful way for two, three and four-year-olds to get creative.
I have harvested sunflower seeds with the children before, which are
great because they're so large and the seed heads themselves are
supremely impressive. However, this year, I decided to go for something
a little different - pot marigolds.
These are great plants for kids - cheerful colours, easy to grow,
good for attracting useful insects and best of all, the petals are
edible. One word of caution - the ideal plant is the English marigold
(Calendula officinalis), not the French or African marigolds (Tagetes
spp.) as most of these aren't edible, or at least aren't a joyful taste
sensation.
The dried out marigold heads have seeds galore and these are just
about large enough for pre-school age children to harvest. Also, you
could have enough seed heads on even three of four plants for a whole
class to have one.
Then, it's just a matter of them sticking on the plant growing
instructions, which I try to keep as simple as possible (for the
parents, as much as the children) so that no-one is worried about having
a go.
Right - that's the serious stuff out of the way. Now it's time for the Movember moustaches.
Since my last post, I have crafted another six. Well, OK, one was not
so much crafted as simply encouraged to reside on my upper lip for a
few seconds. Yes, that's right, it was the live slug moustache
yesterday.
Still, on the plus side, this does mean I am now in triple figures for sponsorship
(£165 - thank you, generous people) and, even more incredibly, the
Bristling Gardeners Team is currently number 16 in the entire country
with over £5K raised for this very good cause. You can see the whole team's photos on Flickr and follow progress here.
Oh, and if I get to £250, I shall try the double worm 'tache.