Fun in the Garden - Blogger Competition!

For us, as a family, garden time is important. The garden is a huge focal point of our lives. When we were looking at buying our house a garden was high up on our must have list. The garden was what sold this house to us. As soon as we saw the garden we knew that it was ideal for us.

When the hubby and I were growing up we both had fond memories of fun play time in the garden and we always knew that we wanted our children to create the same happy memories. As the children have grown, over the years we have so many pictures of happy times and memories of them in the garden.

In the day and age of technology that we live in it is even more vital that we get our children away from the screens and out into the fresh air and enjoying outdoor play.

Our dream has always been to create a garden that the whole family can enjoy. We have a veggie patch where we grow our own fruit and vegetables as well as having chickens for eggs. We believe that the children have gained a better understanding to where vegetables come from. They watch as the seeds germinate, to being planted outside, to seeing the produce grow to helping to harvest. Then of course the fun part, eating what they have seen grow. We love getting the children as involved as possible.

My top tips for getting children into gardening are:

• Get them their own seeds to plant and care for
• Have sunflower growing competitions
• Give the older children their own area of responsibility in the garden or a set job like watering the greenhouse
• Take the children shopping and let the see the plants and allow them to select what to grow
• Let them get their hands in and muddy, kids love getting their hands in the mud!
• Get the children to paint and decorate their plant pots
• Hunt for garden mini beasts

Helping in the garden is not only great family bonding time but it also has great developmental advantages. It assists with physical development and their understanding of the world around them including life cycles and where their food comes from!

 

Growing fruit and vegetables is fun but all children dream of having their own play area.

In our family play area of the garden we have a trampoline, swings, balls, sit on cars and rocking horses. This year we have made a new addition to their play area. We have added a playhouse for the twins. This has become a favourite area of play and an amazing piece of play equipment. To personalise the house for the twins we have painted the house in fun, bright colours. We are still yet to paint inside the house, that is next on our to do list. The hubby has done an amazing job at creating the area for the twins. He cleverly reused some old pallets to become the base for the house. Then by adding some extra planks of wood he has made an adjoining decking area for them to relax on. When we moved some old edging we realised that it would go around the sides of the decking perfectly to create a mini fence around. As you can see with their own little path leading to their house they have the perfect play area that they can call their own.

If you are thinking of adding any piece of play equipment this year to your garden to keep the children occupied during the summer and school holidays we would thoroughly recommend investing in a playhouse. This has been one of the best toy buys that we have made!

If you are a blogger Waltons are giving you the chance to win your very own playhouse, like the one pictured below! Waltons provide high quality playhouses, climbing frames, sheds, log cabins, green houses, summer houses and more. To be in with the chance of winning one of these fantastic playhouses all you have to do is write a blog post similar to what I have written telling Walton about how you like to keep your children entertained in the garden during the summer months. The best post, judged by Waltons, will win their very own playhouse! There will also be a runner up who will win a £50 voucher to spend at Waltons. Check out the Waltons blog for further information.

Photograph courtesy of  Waltons

Disclosure: This post is in collaboration with Waltons. All views and opinions are my own and 100% honest. I am in no way involved with the running or judging of the competition.