Green Shoots Project Welcome to The Daisy Garland Green Shoots Project. The Daisy Garland Green Shoots project has been specifically designed to encourage and inspire children and young adults with complex epilepsy to get outside and practice a bit of ‘green therapy’ by sowing seeds and growing nutritious, low-carb vegetables and edible flowers. For those children on the ketogenic diet this is a great way of generating lots of interest in the food they eat. Who would have thought from first glance that from a tiny seed you can grow a crispy radish, a juicy beetroot, giant pumpkin or a sky-high sunflower? Excellent for both physical and mental health gardening focusses mindful attention on the task in hand which can help reduce anxiety, promote concentration and boost self-esteem. We hope the whole family will join in our Green Shoots adventure and connect with nature and each other over a shared activity. For first-time gardeners the sheer joy of seeing a seed germinate and become something fascinating to look at and delicious to eat is nothing short of wondrous. Enjoy growing with The Daisy Garland! Sara Garland - Founder and CEO PS Why not hunt around the house for egg cartons, pots and food trays to recycle - they make excellent planters! You can have lots of fun making your own plant labels too! Last Friday (March 18th) 45 individual Green Shoots Boxes were made up and dispatched to children with complex epilepsy, from Cornwall to Aberdeen. All of them growing with The Daisy Garland! 🌱 Profound thanks to our kind sponsors, Thompson & Morgan, Burgon & Ball and Canns Down Press, whose generosity allowed us to launch this special project. Meet some of our Green Shoots children whose progress we will be tracking over the coming weeks and months, so please return to this page at regular intervals to see how their growing is going! We will be back with more Green Shoots news very soon! In the meantime, there are lots of lovely recycling ideas HERE to get your seed sowing underway. An egg-cellent idea for growing those little curly cress seeds! Lots of fabulous courgette seedlings - well done Poppy! Top Green Shoots Tip If you make your own plant labels, make sure they don’t touch the damp soil! (like Sara’s did below!) We now have to guess what those little green shoots below are! A sunny kitchen windowsill is the perfect place to get those little seeds popping! We grew our DG curly cress on damp kitchen roll (below) but you can grow it in little pots of soil too. Day 2 (above) Day 3 (above) Day 5 (above) and already bursting with flavour! These radish seeds are just starting to sprout. Fabulous courgettes making their way through the dark soil out into the sunlight. One very happy little Green Shoots gardener 🌱 Time for potting on... 🌱 Top Growing Tip: Keep your seed pots well watered to help them germinate. Poppy's potting on her courgettes ready to sell together with some tomato plants! #daisygarlandfundraising she's already sold 6 to some friends! x Much excitement in our house this morning as our seedlings have started to push their heads through. Tomato plants are through and about half the courgettes. Pumpkin look like they'll need a bit longer but there is a hint of something happening! She's loving it. She's been checking them every day. when I told her this morning that she needed to look at them she jumped out of bed quicker than I've ever managed to get her up! Hello Green Shooters 🌱 What a lot of smashing photos of your little seedlings. Soon your seedlings will have two sets of true leaves, this means it's time to move them into bigger pots, giving them lots of space to grow. If you need help with pricking out and potting on, the following link has lots of useful tips and hints. https://www.gardenninja.co.uk/how-to-pot-on-and-prick-out-seedlings/ Happy growing! and don't forget to keep sending us your super photos which we will add to our website on a weekly basis. In the meantime, Keep Calm and Sow On! 🌱 🌱 🌱