Our first foray into gardening: tomatoes!

Since moving to a house with a garden, I've been keen to spend some time outside and engaging my children in simple garden activities. This is our first spring here and we've watched our daffodils bloom (bulbs we planted earlier this year) and I was wondering what we could plant next. Coincidentally I was recently contacted to see if I'd like to grow our own tomatoes with Heinz Tomato Ketchup as part of their first ever gardening scheme and so I jumped at the opportunity.

We received our gardening goodies from Heinz, pictured above. My son was especially delighted with the wheelbarrow! We were also sent two packets of tomato seeds, the San Marzano variety, a red pot in which to plant some, a wooden crate and one bottle of tomato ketchup.

As this week is National Gardening Week, it seemed fitting to get started on our tomato growing project. We got some compost and my four-year old son started filling up the pots. Carefully following the instructions, we ensured the compost was nice and damp.

Next, my son took great care in placing the seeds onto the compost, spacing them out and then covering with a layer of dry compost. We then gently watered them, placed the pots in plastic bags to retain moisture and they are currently sitting in a sunny spot indoors.

We check them each day, give them some water when needed and are excitedly awaiting the sight of green shoots. I'm not particularly green-fingered myself so I'm a little nervous, but nothing ventured, nothing gained!  Here's hoping I will have some progress to report in due course.

Have you done any planting/gardening with your children? I'd love to hear about anything you have grown or even attempted to grow!

---

Disclosure: We were sent a crate containing the items described above, if we blog our progress Heinz will send us a hamper full of Heinz goodies as a reward.  Get involved too and head over to the Heinz Tomato Ketchup UK Facebook page offering free tomato seeds, tomato trivia and a fun game for all the family to enjoy.