Dole Garden Kit Review & Giveaway {Closed}
I will start by saying that I didn’t grow up in a family that did any gardening and just two summers ago, I began to tinker with gardening in our backyard. I want our girls to know how to garden, but it’s been quite an adventure to learn about our region of the country and what you can plant and when. Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of Internet sites take for granted that you have a basic working knowledge of gardening, which I don’t. Gardening seems to come naturally to many of my friends, and I seem to like the idea of gardening but need more knowledge.
I was very excited to find out that I was going to get to review this gardening kit from Dole. The kit came had 12 peat pots with Quick Soil Mix pellets, 10 individual seed packets, row markers and a “how to” journal with a lot of basic gardening information. I really liked that in each section there was a map of the US with regions and a little difficulty bar showing how easy or hard the seed is to grow.
I read through the journal and we got everything ready for what should have grown in our area at the time the kit arrived. My 5 year old loved getting the peat pots ready and watching the soil expand. Then she placed the seeds in, we labeled the row markers and placed them in our peat pots. After the sprouts had started in our house we moved them out to the new, larger garden my husband had recently built in our backyard.
Then the waiting began and a month later we planted the next round of seeds for our region directly into the soil.
The cucumber plants sprouted really quickly and started to get large so this was exciting for my daughter since she had done the planting.
Here she is looking over everything and telling me which ones have flowers and which ones it looks like the bugs have been eating them.
The latest thing to sprout for us has been the red bell peppers. According to our Dole journal we won’t see any actual vegetables growing until the end of the summer since bell peppers need a lot of sun and heat.
This kit retails for about $20 and I consider it a value. The cost of the seeds alone could come close to that and having the peat pots and “just add water” soil is great fun for the kids. Most of the things we planted in the beginning either did not grow to full size or died. In the reading I have done I found that it was no fault of the product. Our region of the country had an extremely mild winter and the starter things we planted needed it to be much cooler to grow correctly. Currently we have carrots, red bell peppers and cucumbers from the Dole Garden Kit on their way to producing food. In the fall we will plant the remaining seeds for our winter garden, and I expect everything to grow well.
I think the kit is very fun for kids to be a part of because you look for your region, prepare the ground for the peat pots and go. The journal is very clear cut with information on when to plant, the best type of soil, how much water and sun the plant will need and each section has a list of tips for planting. In the back of the journal, there is lots of space for making notes about your garden, recipes, and a neat little garden planning grid that you can write on or make copies of to make your plans on.
A side benefit to this kit is that it gets you and the kids outside more and there is so much you can teach them while using it. We have talked about the sun, the rain, the bugs, the bunnies and everything else that can impact the growth of the garden. With the easy life our kids lead I think it’s also great for them to see that food has to start somewhere, not just be picked up at the store. This kit is a great way to introduce gardening to your family.
Dole Garden Kit Giveaway
This week, five of you Hip Homeschool Moms will win one of these Dole Garden Kits for your family! Ready to enter?
That is the coolest thing to help start a garden with your kids. So educational. We could put that to good use. I am new to this Home Schooling Educational System. We withdrew our daughter from school because of bullying and the school said that there is nothing they can do. We didn’t want our daughter to become another statistic. I think there are some things that they can do and don’t want to or don’t want to get involved. Anything that I can get my hands on would be a tremendous help. I don’t have much money either.
When I was little we did and I want to now to teach my kids and have fresh produce but I dont feel like I know enough to do it.
My mom was a vegetarian when I was growing up and we ate home grown food. Somehow though I inherited a black thumb of floral death. Id love such an easy to use kit so my kids could enjoy what I enjoyed.
We’re new to gardening. I received a sampler starter kit with basil and parsley. It’s starting to grow! The kids are very excited!
We love gardening .. Our apartment living makes it a lil challenging
My father has always had a garden. Unfortunately he is getting older and stopped this year. I would like to start a garden for my family so we can keep up traditions.
I have gardened off and on for most of my life, and I love things like this kit for teaching kids about gardening. We always have a pretty steady stream of children spending different seasons with us and this will be perfect to use this summer 🙂
I have seen this kit and wondered if it would be worth it! Thanks for reviewing it so honestly. I am the same way…I really want to garden but know literally nothing about getting started and have been completely overwhelmed by what I found online!! I love your little backyard garden…pinning that for my husband to see…he will be SO thrilled:)
Shana – my pleasure. It was a fun little kit and I was excited to review it
When I was a teenager, I planted a flower garden in my backyard. It was beautiful and it attracted all sorts of wildlife. I would love to plant a vegetable garden with my daughter. This kit looks like a lot of fun!
We grow stuff in containers- lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and parsley this year.
I am waiting desperately to get into a house of our own so we can put down some roots- both lfiguratively and literally!
We grow peppers and tomatoes. I would like to grow alot more!
I would love to win this, we don’t garden yet.
Our family was only able to plant some flowers this Spring:( Although we have been watching God do amazing things with our back neighbors garden! What miracles to observe!
We dont only because Im a gardening dummy. I would LOVE to win this set for my kids and myself. We love garden foods!!
We have yet to grow our own garden – for the same reasons listed by the author: we need more knowledge – something to give us a start.
We have a garden just w/flowers and plants that came w/the house. We have a lot of tree cover which doesn’t allow us to grow very much in other parts outdoors. My daughter would LOVE a veggie garden.
We grow fields of hay for the cattle and a kitchen garden (tomatoes, basil, peppers, oregano, etc.)
We are new at gardening, can’t wait to see some fresh herbs and veggies!
We havent this year. We missed our oportunity. 🙁
We love to grow our own veggies but since moving to the desert we have been having trouble getting our garden to survive the heat. We would love to win a kit to help us get our garden going this year. I love how kid friendly this kit is.
we do, right now we have watermelons, eggplants and tomatoes
This is the first year we have been truly successful and we are growing yellow squash and tomatoes. Green peppers and cucumbers didn’t sprout. 🙁
I’ve always wanted to start a garden. We’re hoping next year to get started!
This year we’re growing several culinary herbs and a few tomatoes. It’s a lot smaller then previous years but we want to build up our dirt better.
we want to start gardening, we do have raspberry bushes that we usually pick enough to make a few deserts.
We are getting to move, leaving our garden behind :0(, and this “portable” garden would be great to take to our new home! Thanks for the opportunity to win!
We always had a garden when I was a kid. I haven’t done any in over 10 years. Tried this year and it just didn’t seem to work well for. Hopeing the dole jouirnal kit will help with my problems
We tried to plant herbs this year but everything died. Maybe with this kit my four kids can learn more about nature!
Our family LOVES gardening, in fact we are looking for a new place that will let us do more. Right now the only things surviving is our herbs. Sadly, our cherry tomatoes took a dive this year.
We’ve grown tomatoes in the past, but would like try growing some other things. 🙂
Yes, we do garden. We plant a variety…spinach, kale, peas, snow peas, beets, potatoes, tomatoes, lima beans, kidney beans, green beans, cucumbers, watermelon, cantelope, sunflowers, etc.
THis is our first year gardening. We have tomatoes, white onions, red, green, yellow peppers, snap peas, and green beans. We didn’t know that tomato plants “take over” so we will be needing a larger area next year 🙂
I’ve never had a garden before, and my thumbs are fairly black, but I know my children would just LOVE planting things and watching them grow!!
We just moved into a house with outdoor space and took the big gardening leap with a homemade raised bed. I’ve never grown anything more than basil in a pot on a windowsill, so only time will tell if we’re successful with our bean, zucchini & tomato plants (and tons of basil, of course hehe)!
My family does some gardening. We have a shady yard, so we usually stick to lettuces, greens, beans, etc.
We are trying to get more into gardening. I have a black thumb and don’t want to pass my inability to grow anything on to my kids lol!
we love to garden – mostly tomatoes!