What can I grow that will grow quickly and be "ready" quickly. My son is Autistic and although high functioning, he has a difficult time with waiting. And transitions. We are having public sewers put in and the entire backyard, including the flower garden is going to be dug up. I have transplanted the plants I want to keep, left the weeds (Woo Hoo, no weeding for me for a while) and tried to prepare him for the upcoming change. I thought if I could throw something in the ground quickly that would bloom fast, for bear fruit quickly, he would not be quite so upset. I know that it seems trite, but to an Autistic person, digging up the yard would be like tearing your arm off. little thing HUGE deal. I am in zone 5/6 and am willing to try just about anything, annuals, perrienials, bulbs, tubers, snake oil LOL. You get the picture. Thanks for the advice.
Kellly
Looking for info on gardening for Autistic child
Hi, KayKay:
My husband is a child psychiatrist and has a lot of autistic children in his practice. And we have an Asperger'scnhild ourselves so I know exactly what you are talking about in terms of transitions. I also understand completely how some changes that most people don't even give a second thought to can be a seriosuly major big deal. Like a different brand of peanut butter.) For months I had to keep refilling the old jar wtih the famiiar label with the new peanut butter. Our friends thought I was nuts (oooh sorry - BAD pun), but there was no other way. And major changes can cause beyond major issues, so you are wise to plan ahead and have something stable in place in the midst of the chaos.
We have huge gardens and tons of plants in his office and all the patients like to check out the progress, and this is the kids as well as the parents. (He has his office in our home.)
Anyway, here are my suggestions:
Zinnias sprout in about 5 days if grown from seed. They are so easy to grow and bloom all summer. Plus, depending on the variety, they grow fairly tall and bushy and look pretty impressive, all things considered.
Morning glories sprout in a couple of days in water and then after you plant them outside, you can almost watch them grow. I sprout mine by putting them on a paper towel in a small plastic tray (the kind that you get at the deli for hot food) with about an inch of water. That gives almost instant gratification even for someone who’s not autistic. Really, they have such a hard shell, if you leave them to sprout in the dirt, you’re there for a month waiting for them to come up. Some folks also advise filing a small area of the seed cover but I haven’t done that – just your basic laziness – too lazy to go to the bathroom to get a file while I am planting lol.
Marigolds are very easy to grow from seed, bloom quickly, and when you plant them outdoors, it’s amazing how fast they grow. They are a favorite of grammar school teachers for that purpose. You can plant in or out.
As for verggies – DDH (Dear Doctor Hubby says that if you buy a good sized tomato plant and feed it and sing to it, it should set buds very soon after you put it in the ground. Early Girls bear fruit especially fast and cherry tomatoes can be eaten off the plant as a snack - unless he hates fresh tomatoes. The singing is my two cents added in, but DDH agrees that it can’t hurt, might help. Although he doesn’t know where your son falls on the autism spectrum, if he has difficulty forming attachments, this might help him bond with a plant.
Another good one is green beans. Sprout within a few days, the leaves grow large enough and sturdy enough to handle touching, the flowers are nice, and then… there are beans. Pole (vine) beans are just as nice. Plant radishes alongside the beans and get two for the price of one - and both bloom/mature quickly.
Lastly, and don’t laugh, I used to have my kids plant grass in flower pots in the house in the winter when they were getting tired of winter and antsy for spring. (Can you tell I’m big into growing things?!)
DDH also suggests that flowers from seed could be grown in the house in an egg carton and then he has the pleasure of watching them up close and then planting them outside. I've never grown green beans from seed anywhere but outside, so I can't give any suggestions there, but tomatoes from seed is definitely not the way to go.
Just a final thought... this jut occurred to me....how about letting a potato sprout an eye in the kitchen and then plant outside? Large dark green plant, pretty impressive.
Hope these ideas help…. Cathy
PS... if he likes strawberries, you can get strawberry plants already in bloom at Lowe's and Home Depot. Ozarks are very sweet (Lowe's had them this weekend) and HD had some everbloomers. They don't bloom all summer, but do have a second crop in the late summer.
And if you'd like, I can send you some snippets of my Alpine Strawberries. Tiny little fruit (but it's edible) but they grow like weeds (some poeple consider them weeds - not me!), very winter hardy, set out runners very rapidly so he can watch them travel, and bloom and bear fruit all summer. It would be a pleasure to share. If you'de like some, DMail mailing info. I could even address it to him, which I know might be another BIG deal because then he would have some ownership right from the get go.
And I understand ALL about that as well. My husband has a therapy dog for the kids, and the kids really bond to the extent that when he sees kids in our home on Fridays (that's the only day he works at home), every kid looks for her and brings her a treat. She was gaining so much weight, we put her on a diet and stopped feeding her on Fridays! She was grazing all day long.
Once, she had gotten into siomething and smelled like a swamp so he walked her up the street for a bath and grooming just before the first patient arrived (there is a terrific groomer about five doors up the street who, god bless her can always squeeze Emily in). One child was so upset that Emily (AKA The Divine Miss Em) wasn't there, I had to go and get her, barely done with her bath, still wet, not groomed, and carry her home in a towel for the little guy to give her the treat he brought and play with her for a few minutes. There was no appeasing him, and his mom waited after their appointment while I went to get her!
Good luck with your little guy adn I hope all this helps. Cathy
God Bless you!!! : )
I am so glad someone "gets" it. Patrick is high on the spectrum, having Aspergers, however, that is not the end of his conditions. He also has Tourettes syndrome and ADHD (like half the country), OCD and Intermittent Explosive Disorder, which further complicates things. Many of his issues are compounded because they have very similar problems, so we have overlapping.
I like the ideas that you gave me. I actually have strawberries that are not in the area to be dug, so everyday I send him out to gather our harvest (2 or 3 at a time.) He feels very big and important. I will definitely do the zinnias and marigolds, I already have those seeds. I will buy some beans, DO you think seeds or plants? I always buy tomatoes, even though he is not fond of them, he like to watch things grow and gather.
He started with a meltdown the very second we talked to him about the yard having to be dug up, even the idea of Monster Machinery in the yard could not change his mind about being upset. He was gonna "knock the heck out of them if they tear up the yard." As you probably know, the fact that they HAD to do it meant nothing. They were messing with our yard.
We actually have considered a therapy dog for him. He does have his very own cat, who really likes him and not anyone else. The first year we had her, her feet never touched the ground, he was carrying her so much. We are pretty lucky, he is empathetic and that does help when his behavior is out of control. We remind him he may hurt someone and he manages to calm down for a second.....Really, a second. It is just enough to help.
I appreciate the offer to send some alpine berries, I have never heard of them. You may Dmail me if you would like. But, I would like it if you sent it to both my boys, My youngest gets put on the back burner quite often and he is really starting to feel left out. Let me know how much for the postage and I can SASBE.
Thanks for the response, I kind of feel I have a kindred spirit here. Gardening is my release.
Kelly
Change is always so difficult for these individuals!
You've had some excellent seed suggestions . I am wondering about purchasing small annuals such as petunias which could be planted and would grow and flower pretty quickly.
Growing grass in pots is a neat idea - his cat would probably like it too!
I used to grow grass all winter for my first cat (they n ever go outside) and he loved it! Catnip is another thing to grow which the cat would love! ALthough you have to be caregul how much they eat or they get stoned!
Radish seeds sprout and grow quickly. They are edible, of course, but a young person might not like the taste!
Kelly,
How is everything going? I have a disabled child as well, though her disability is very different. I hope all went well for you. Sunflowers are also quick and easy.
Melissa
He is getting along OK, the yard is starting to get put back together. he is able to go out to the back yard again, and he helped me plant cosmos and transplant the plants we removed from the back. He is still concerned about everyon going in and out of the yard.......he is like a little watchdog.
Thanks for thinking of us,
Kelly
another suggestion (i know this thread is old, but incase there are new viewers) have a lot of different things going on, seeds planted inside, waiting to make seedlings, maybe some paperwhites, inside and out, clippings in jars of water to root.
...just several things, so incase there isn't change in 1 thing, there are several other things going on for a chance of seeing something new.
stephanie
I am retired and my two big passions in life have been teaching disabled children and adults (Sp.ed.UT Austin) and horticulture (NM State). I was lucky enough to find the Brookwood Community in Brookshire, Texas and combine the two loves. It is both a residential and day program. The lady who started it back in the 80's has an autistic adult who lives there. I worked in the greenhouses back in 89 and 90 when we only had 17 greenhouses. Now it is a multimillion dollar business and the vast majority of the work is done by the students with teachers. I know that Brookwood is too far away for you and your families to benefit from. Please visit their site on line. www.brookwoodcommunity.com. The students get paid for working and then get to have the fun of managing their own money for shopping, etc. (the profits from the greenhouse operation goes to the scholarship fund)
Hi Kay, You might try the soil-sprouting I do all winter to keep me in salad greens. The greens are ready to harvest in just 7 days. So there is a very short 'season' from planting to harvest. You can see pictures day 1 through 7 at thedailygardener site. The neat thing is that there are small changes everyday and with the seeds on top of the soil you can take a peak everyday just by peeling back the paper cover. I grow Sunflower, Radish, Buckwheat, and Peas. I plant and harvest everyday so that I keep the space and storage needs to a minimum. Of course I just like to play in the soil too, being a gardener give me soil and seeds and I am happy! This started as a winter project and turned out it changed the way I garden, and gave me something to look forward to in October when everything in the garden is almost finished.
I would think it might be something worth trying, so you make sure to ask if you have any questions, or need seed or whatever.
TDGarden beat me to it. The thread he started on sprouts made me think that'd be a really good idea for the impatient. Personally, I get excited WHENEVER any of my seeds sprout. It doesn't matter whether they're ready to eat or not. There's just something fascinating about watching them change each day. For a while, I had an extra laptop I could devote to the task of taking time-lapse movies of my seedlings. I only had a webcam so the quality wasn't that great, but it was so interesting to see how much the plants moved and grew in just two days.
Hi spidra, the time lapse sounds like fun. I did something like that for my website but decided that just a picture of each day as the sprouts grew was enough. I am glad that you had the same idea I did. I have had some really great feedback from people growing soil-sprouts with their kids.