Out in the Garden on a Fine Day

Summer weekends are great for hikes and treks, fishing and camping in areas close by – but what happens when the weather forecast calls for sun until noon and rain or thunderstorms to follow? You can’t let the day go to waste.

My kids and I change such days into garden adventures. So while my husband is busy planting and pruning, we begin the reaping and creating process.

Step 1: Equipped with our baskets and garden scissors, we first plunge into the acquisition process. So off we go:

  1. Lavender and rose plucking
  2. Resin scraping (any fir or pine variety)
  3. Reaping the joys of all the previous sowing (flowers, salads, carrots, kale, peas, parsley, mint and more)

Step 2: Head to the local store to pick up some:

  1. Transparent linen or silken bags with string to seal off the top. Or if we’re lucky, we have leftover bags from last season that we might have stitched using old clothes. The kids love experimenting with the sewing machine during holiday time if we decide to stay home.
  2. Beeswax and essential oils of your choice

Step 3: Here comes the rain, and we head indoors with all we’ve acquired and set out to create our little natural and homemade possessions of pride.

feature2_gardenfunwithkids_aradhna_oct2016

1. Lavender bags and floral room fresheners

Simply remove and collect all the purple lavender flowers and fill up the bags, string and seal them. You could hang them in your cupboards to keep moths and silverfish at bay and keep the cupboard smelling fresh. A bag in the fridge can deodorize it.

As room fresheners, take little glass bowls of slightly warm water and add rose petals and lavender flowers and place them at your dining table or coffee table. Looks good. Smells good. Feels fresh.

Put the rest of your flower collection in a vase and set it on the table.

2. Moisturizing resin cream for fun

I don’t have a standard recipe – but here’s what works:

Put the resin you’ve collected (usually about a small bowlful) with double the amount of beeswax in a pot that you can heat (preferably a double boiler). Stir the mixture till it’s creamy. You can add a little bit of water or almond oil and stir it all really well. Once you get a creamy, homogenous mixture, switch off the heat and continue stirring so that the mix is thick but not solid yet. Once cooler, add 5-10 drops of essential oil or the lavender flowers and stir and continue stirring. My daughter insists on doing the stirring and calls herself the “happy potion-brewing witch.”

Spoon out the mix into small jars and seal the lid. Perfect for your daily moisturizing needs.

3. Eat fresh. Eat clean

And now to the relaxing treat: Wash out a handful of mint leaves and a small piece of chopped ginger. Pour in 50 ml of boiling water. After 5 minutes, top up your jug with cold water. Add a squirt of lemon juice and syrup or juice of your choice to enhance the flavor without over-sweetening your drink.

Wash, clean and chop your garden produce and set up a fresh fruit and vegetable buffet. Go raw and enjoy the freshness.

feature3_gardenfunwithkids_aradhna_oct2016

Text and photos by Aradhna Sethi

Aradhna Sethi is the author of The Entrepreneur’s Wife – A Survival Guide.  She has held roles of responsibility as the chief editor and consulting editor and senior consultant features’ correspondent for English-language publications. Aradhna blogs and writes for various online and print platforms while balancing the demands of growing kids and her entrepreneurial husband. Follow her on aradhnasethi.wordpress.com and on Twitter.

Illustration by Bvisual.

Beth works as special educational needs teacher. She graduated from university after studying visual communication, specialising in illustration, and then went on to do post graduate studies in education. Beth’s been working as a freelance creative alongside her teaching, and has undertaken projects involving portraits and editorial illustrations under her artist’s name BVisual.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *