A sunflower playhouse is a great way to spend some quality time with your kids this summer. It will first teach them how to grow sunflowers from seeds. It will provide them with a neat place to play this summer. It will also provide a source of delicious sunflower seeds you and your kids can harvest and eat. A playhouse doesn’t take up a lot of space in your back yard. So you can grow one whether you live on a city lot or on a country acre. And- this is really important if you live in the city- it’s quite attractive, so your neighbors shouldn’t complain.
Plus, building a sunflower playhouse doesn’t cost a lot of money either.
To start building a sunflower playhouse with your kids, you’ll need some assorted seeds. Sunflowers come in different varieties that grow short or tall. For the walls of the playhouse, you’ll want to use a tall grower like the Italian White. This type of plant grows to be about four feet tall. Then, you’ll also need some lower plants like the Teddy Bear sunflower. It only grows to a height of about eighteen inches high.
After you’ve purchased some seeds, you’ll need to mark off a spot in your backyard. Sunflowers grow best in the full sunshine, so be sure to pick a spot that’s not shaded. A nice-sized playhouse will be six feet wide and seven feet long. You and your kids can use small wooden stakes and a roll of twine to mark out your garden. Or, you can use a small plastic bag with a bottom corner snipped off. Fill the bag with plain white flour and hold the open corner up so the flour doesn’t spill out. Then, when you’re ready to mark your yard, hold the plastic bag down and walk along. The flour will make an outline in the grass so you can tell where to plant your sunflowers.
Next, you’ll need to dig up the soil where you marked your yard. Make each furrow about a foot wide. Remove any rocks, sticks, and other debris from the soil. Mix a bag of peat moss into the dirt in each furrow. Then, level the dirt in your rows.
Before you start planting the sunflower seeds with your kids, you’ll need to decide where the “windows” of the playhouse will be. The “windows” will be the location of the lower growing sunflowers. Windows that measure a foot wide work well in the design of this size playhouse.
Use a hoe to make a shallow trench in the middle of each furrow. Your kids can sprinkle the seeds in the trench behind you. Then, someone needs to cover the seeds up. Water the sunflower seeds you and your kids have planted in the furrows with a garden hose. You may have to instruct your kids to stay off the seeds and just let nature do its thing for now. (This fun project can also teach them patience.)
In the meantime, have your kids help you keep the soil around the seeds moist and free from weeds.
In a week or two, the plants should peek out of the ground. From there, they’ll continue to grow and make their ascent into the air.
The shorter variety of sunflower plants like the Teddy Bear shouldn’t need to be staked up. But the Italian White type may well need some support to help it grow up straight and strong. You and your kids can use long, thin pieces of wood to stake them up. Or, you can use long bamboo poles for the job. Thin strips of old pairs of pantyhose make great ties to attach the plants to the poles with.
Once the sunflower plants are fully grown, your kids can begin to have lots of fun inside their natural playhouse!
