Horticulture to go - a case of it

I call the speech-language treatment activity "horticulture to go", because it essentially does not let the person you serve - if you serve a facility where people are housed, for medical, nursing and/or rehabilitative care - off the hook. They don't want to come to you, then you can go to them. Start seedlings, cultivate, water, transplant, harvest. That easy. Of course, "to go" means your STUFF has to be portable. In my most recent trial of HTG, I used a shoebox with an attached lid as the garden hardscape. For the actual garden beds I selected

This is the best time of year, as Chia Pet products are heavily marketed for the holiday season.
Two of the herb garden kits supplied SIX terra cotta pots, which filled up the majority of the shoebox space. If you are doing this with a child or adult, fill the empty space with crumpled single pages of newspaper, wedges of styrofoam or any other pliable material that will help stabilize the pots in transit. The rest is so easy!

Though ample instructions for seed starting are in the kit, my direction set reads similar to this:

" I need your help. I want to start growing some herbs, but it goes faster with two persons working. Can you help, please? Good! Here's what we need to do."

After the pots are unwrapped, and wiped clean of any plastic debris: "this is where the seeds will sprout. Now we need dirt."

The soil is initially a dry disc, but when you "add water....", it dramatically swells to take the shape of the container. After the seed packet is opened, I pour out the contents into a clear plastic medicine cup.

Each seed variety is examined, to discriminate it from another, then the person is told " Please pour the seeds into THIS (pointing) pot". Once all the seeds are placed in all the pots, a light cultivation can be done with a TOOTHPICK, or the point of a PEN or PENCIL not being used, or the handle edge of a plastic TEASPOON - any low tech tool will do, to evenly distribute the seeds about the surface of the soil.

You can use that same medicine cup to "pour the water over the seeds in each pot". Six filled cups; one per each seedling pot. SO NOW, the seeds have their SOIL, their WATER - they need, next, their LIGHT and their AIR to sprout and grow. Providing air is easy; when you are not transporting the box about, the lid can be folded open to allow even airflow. But, light?

Though there will be ample sun during the fall and winter months ahead, a light source with sufficient HEAT (like the gooseneck lamp I have) comes in handy to accelerate the germination (POP!) process. What happens as a result of all this?

My most recent foray into HTG, has a woman in her mid 80's who is normally recalcitrant about therapy - smiling and saying she wants to keep at least SOME of the plants she helped start. Who knew?
HTG. Try it and see!

My thanks in this blog post, to Joseph Enterprises for all their creative and marketing legerdemain in putting the "Chia Pet" empire together. You can get information on their products, including the herb garden pictured above, by going to their website at http://www.chia.com.