Turn Screen Time into Grow Time 🌱
let’s Make Little Hands Into Creative Hands
The Irish Growing Calendar 🇮🇪
Our weather can be tricky, so timing is everything! Here is your month-by-month guide to what the kids can sow, grow, and harvest throughout the year.
Key: 🏠 Indoor/Glasshouse Job | 🌱 Outdoor Sowing/Planting | 🧺 Harvesting
Spring (Awakening)
February
- Chit Potatoes: Put seed potatoes in old egg cartons on a bright windowsill to grow their little "eyes". Kids love watching them sprout!
- Sow Sweet Peas: Start these indoors in deep pots or old toilet roll tubes.
March
- Tomatoes: Sow tomato seeds indoors if you have a sunny windowsill or a heated propagator.
- First Veg: If the ground isn't frozen, plant onion sets and hardy broad beans outside.
April
- Sunflowers: Sow giant sunflower seeds in individual pots indoors.
- Plant Potatoes: Time to bury those chitted potatoes deep in the soil or in large potato bags.
Summer (Growing)
May
- Risk of Frost Passes: Usually around late May. Move indoor seedlings (like sunflowers) outside.
- Sow Carrots: Sow carrot seeds directly into the ground or deep containers.
June
- Watering Duty: Put the kids in charge of the watering can. Everything needs a good drink, especially pots!
- Strawberries: The first strawberries should be turning red. Race the birds to them!
July
- Polytunnel Check: If you have tomatoes in a tunnel, teach kids to tap the yellow flowers to help pollinate them.
- First Potatoes: Dig up your early potatoes. It's like a treasure hunt in the dirt!
Autumn (Harvesting)
August
- Berry Picking: Harvest blackberries from the hedgerows (with gloves!).
- Keep Weeding: Pulling weeds is easy now before they drop seeds for next year.
September
- Apple Time: Pick eating apples.
- Plant Bulbs: Get kids planting daffodil and crocus bulbs now for a burst of colour next spring.
October
- Pumpkins: Harvest pumpkins just in time for Halloween carving.
- Leaf Jumping: Rake up fallen leaves to make leaf mould (and jump in the piles first!).
Winter (Planning)
November
- Tool Care: Bring kids' tools inside, wash off the mud, and dry them so they don't rust.
- Feed the Birds: Set up bird feeders to help wildlife through the cold Irish winter.
December
- Craft Time: Paint old terracotta pots indoors ready for next year's seeds.
- Seed Sorting: Look through seed catalogues and let the kids pick one "weird" vegetable to try next year.
January
- Cress Heads: Grow cress on damp cotton wool in empty eggshells. Draw faces on the shells!
- Build a Bug Hotel: Gather twigs and pinecones to build a shelter for beneficial insects.
