Grow your own edible teepee

Antoinette Mcdaid tells Emily Horton her ideas on how the kids can reconnect with nature this summer

I agree with the hoo-hah about the disconnect between our children and nature – especially given that British kids aged 11 to 15 spend, on average, half of their waking day in front of a screen.

More startling is the fact that the area in which children are now able to roam without parental supervision has reduced by almost 90% since the 1970s. So it seems even more important that we make the most of the space that they do have.

Being a mum and living in the suburbs, I want to make the most of encouraging my children to appreciate the natural world and give them an understanding of where their food comes from and how it grows. So, I take the kids outdoors and get their hands dirty.

One way I am encouraging my own sons to sprout ‘green fingers’ is by making it fun – we are currently growing a runner bean teepee...

You will need

An overlooked and sad (but sunny) corner in your garden
Bamboo canes
Rustic-looking twine
Runner bean seeds (we chose Scarlet Emperor, because of its early cropping)
Any other vertical growing plants (e.g. tomatoes and sweetpeas)

Instructions

1) Choose your patch (around 1.5m in diameter), level the ground and turn over the soil

2) Mark out a circle with a piece of twine/string tied to a twig (or use a chopstick).

3) Plant your bamboo canes about 30cm into the ground, 50cm apart – leaving a gap at the entrance of the teepee.

4) Lean your bamboo canes to a centre point at about eye-level and knot together with string (about 20cms from top).

5) Tie string up the canes to make the sides of the teepee (30cms apart)

6) Plant your seeds at the base of each bamboo cane. Add sweetpea seeds and tomato plants as you wish. Consider cornflower seeds and marigolds for around the base too.

7) Water each day and encourage new shoots to grow up and wind around the canes. Use twine to secure if needed. (Don’t forget to talk to them!)

8) Finally, imagine the kids crawling into their pretty and edible teepee on a sunny afternoon, and feel blooming fantastic!