Dan The Gardener Says - Aren’t your kids tired of the same old gardening projects? The composting, the earth worms etc.. Its time you try something a little different! Gardening should be quick and fun! What better way than to personalise your garden with your own personalised fruits and vegetables!

Interest wanes, as plants take a long time to grow, but spark the kid’s interest by personalising their fruits and vegetables. This is a great way to have fun in the garden.

Choose your child's favourite fruit, the fruit should be a mature size, but hasn’t yet started to change colours. Cut out paper letters of their names. The size of the letters is determined by the size of the fruit and the length of the name.

Using edible glue, paste the letters on the side of the fruit facing the sun and allow the fruits to mature naturally, periodically checking that watering, insects or rains have not washed the letters away.

When the fruit is ripe, wash off the paper letters. The name should be emblazoned on the fruit in pale letters that did no change colour due to exposure to the sun.

Jennifer Pickles suggests have fun in the garden by using different shapes and stencils. For a larger scale project, use cardboard and cut out big letters, which the children can place on a sunny area of the lawn, after a week, when the letters are removed, their names are inscribed on the grass! Their own piece of the garden!

For more permanent results, children can also plant corns in the shape of their names. Give them a bare piece of earth, reading for sowing, and get them to sow the seeds in the shape of their names and water it regularly. After about a week, the corn will start to germinate and the children can have a beautiful garden in their own name or in different shapes.

Through this project, the children learn a lot about sunlight and its uses in food production. It also teaches them about chlorophyll and encourages them to experiment with landscaping and garden beautification. Along with personalising their garden, give them a few inventive plant containers like old shoes or old tyres etc and allow them to create a personal space in the garden, where they can experiment and have some fun.

Gardening is a great way to put all that you learn in school into practice. It also brings the children closer to nature and allows them to be more sensitive towards the environment. Go on, put on your green thumbs, its time to have fun in the garden