My toddler just loves to be in the garden pottering.  Digging and watering are his loves and these activities have maintained his interest for at least 6 months, so giving him his very own space seemed like a great opportunity to get creative.

Initially I was going to buy a willow vegetable planter, but I realised it reminded me of something we already had… Oh yes, our old picnic basket, sitting unloved and abandoned at the back of the shed.  I admit I was chuffed to be able to re-use it because it is a relic of our relationship as a couple.  Neil bought it to take me on a trip to Brighton, back in 2008 when we could just take these random romantic trips.  How life has changed!  To make it last a bit longer as a planter, you could add a liner, but I left mine with just the gingham as I was worried that adding a something would stop the drainage.

Carrying on the thrifty theme I used the wicker cup holder, a recycled ready meal lid, some unused cups and an old plant pot holder as a small planter.  We added a pumpkin seed to each hole in the cup holder, replanted some lettuce leaves into the recycled ready meal lid and some wallflowers seedlings into the plant pot.

To give the garden a fun personalised feel I used some tin cans to add my sons name to the edge of his patch.  To do this I simply used a nail and hammer to add letters to the ends of some tin cans and dug these into the soil. You can’t see it but I also added a star, for more complicated patterns it’s probably best to use a marker pen to draw the outline.  They’ll look better when the mud subsides and I can’t tell you how satisfying it was hammering holes into tin.

I’ve so many gardening ideas lined up for the summer, I am already loving every minute spent outside with Nye.  The time seems to fly by, and every day everything is growing bigger, there are new flowers in bloom and creatures to discover.   Here are just a few of my plans from my board.  Plus, here are a few unusual planting ideas to get your DIY thrifty childrens garden started.

Thrifty Planting Ideas:
Picnic basket
Tea cup
Welly
Bucket
Trug
Old kitchen tins
Recycling containers
Tea pot