Getting your children or grandchildren involved in gardening can be a very rewarding experience, but where do you start? Connecting kids with the outdoors, getting exercise, and creating lifelong memories all go hand in hand when you spend time gardening with children. Growing your own live grass Easter Basket is a really easy and fast way to get results for children.
This project will show you how to grow your own live grass Easter basket and provide quick rewards to produce a beautiful project that your children will be able to show off to friends and family. I love how easy this project is to do in an hour or less!
Supplies to create a live grass Easter basket:
- Basket or container for planting
- Garbage bag
- Garden soil or potting mix
- Scissors
- Annual ryegrass seed (any fast growing grass seed)
- Spray bottle
Step 1: To begin, chose a container that you would like to make your “living Easter basket” out of and remember that containers that are shallow will work just fine. Place this on a steady surface and line the inside of the basket with your garbage bag, pushing the plastic into any corners. The garbage bag is going to be your very simple liner for this basket, so make sure there aren’t any holes or rips.
Step 2: Next, add your soil to the basket, leaving a small edge of the basket sticking up above or beyond the edge of the soil. Try to keep the soil fairly flat so that you can water easily. I used a potting soil for this to help keep the basket more light weight than topsoil or compost.
Go ahead and press it down so that you have a nice firm planting surface and you won’t have to worry about the soil sinking down much when watered. This is a great way to get those little hands involved too! Let them push down the dirt, patting it in the shape of the basket. Kids love getting to feel things and this is a good one!
Step 3: To give the basket a clean, finished look, trim the plastic of the garbage bag so that it only sticks up about half an inch beyond the soil. The nice thing about a garbage bag is how easily scissors slide through the plastic. Obviously, this is an adult step in the project, but depending on the age of your children it would be possible to let them help here too.
Step 4: Finally, liberally sprinkle your grass seed on the entire surface of the soil in the basket. It is okay to plant it very thick and this will help your basket to be more full. When you are finished, use a spray bottle to water the entire surface of the soil.
Place the live grass Easter basket near a sunny window or on a porch or balcony and have your child spray spray the seeds every few days to keep the soil moist.
Step 5: Your basket should begin to germinate in 7-10 days and have a full appearance in 14 days. As the grass begins to grow, have your child “mow” their basket by trimming the grass with a pair of scissors. It is okay to take up to one third of the length of the grass off at a time, and this will help keep an even basket of grass.
Your live grass Easter basket should continue to grow for as long as 60 days after planting. This green project is a great replacement for the synthetic plastic often used in baskets and a great learning opportunity for your children. Keep watering as long as you want to enjoy your living basket, and after the season has passed simply empty and save for next year’s gardening project!
And as a side note, your cats will like this too! You may need to find a cat safe place to keep this until Easter and then share it with them after!
