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Cultivating an indoor tea garden is a great way to keep you productive while you're stuck at home. Different types of herbal teas can be used to help with all kinds of health-related issues. This post by Maria Ames explains why she recommends that you invest in these teas and make your indoor space a place for treatment and relaxation.

Research has shown that herbal teas can also boost your immune system and make your skin healthier. They are a great alternative to packaged teas and coffees, and anyone can cultivate a tea garden in the comfort of their homes. Check out these easy-to-care flowers and herbs for a happy and healthier lifestyle.

Chamomile

Chamomile is an easy to grow herb and a well-known herbal tea. Chamomile tea is best consumed before bedtime because of its potential sleep benefits. It also helps you to be more relaxed. If you have diabetes, it is recommended to drink at least one cup of this tea after meals.

Compared to other tea plants, Chamomile does not grow too high and needs only four sun exposure hours. For maintenance, ensure that its soil is moist enough and not over-watered. You can also add organic matter when planting for healthier leaves. 

This Summer we're working with Sudocrem on their Back To The Garden campaign - to encourage families to get growing, whether you have a garden, a yard, a balcony or a window.

Most of us are temporary teachers to our children, supporting their learning whether your school is sending work online, you are following the BBC Bitesize lessons, printing off worksheets or something else. We all take in much more information when it's fun, and growing your own plants is incredibly rewarding, as well as being a perfect opportunity to learn.
Long term projects are important right now. They give us a focus and something to look forward to. They can also offer some control in a world of uncertainty. Gardening is a brilliant way to get away from screens and focus on life.
Sudocrem gave away 100 growing kits to families, and they also gave away 3 to my readers. The kits are worth around £40 each, and have everything you need to get started, including seeds, gloves and gardening tools - and of course some Sudocrem to soothe a gardener's skin that's been scratched, prickled or stung, or just become dry from handwashing.

The So MAGIC DIY range from Canal Toys is bright and colourful with interesting things to grow and build. We were sent the Wonder Magic Garden for review a while ago and it's been incredibly well-used here - by everyone.

It seems a Zen Garden is a relaxing and tranquil thing whatever your age, so I'm delighted that Canal Toys are giving one of you a Wonder Magic Garden as a Christmas Present.


There are lots of different features, but your garden has 4 different sections and plenty of coloured sand to pick and choose how you fill them. There is also a putty-type slime to fill your pond area of the garden.

As soon as I saw the So MAGIC Wonder Garden I loved it. As a child I was fascinated by real and imitation miniature gardening, and my Grandmother used to buy me magic trees as a very special treat. We've been sent the DIY Wonder Garden for review and it's great to introduce my own children to one of the real joys of my own childhood.


The main packaging is a sturdy cardboard box, which my postman trashed, so this is a rear view. Inside there are lots of smaller separate components which are mainly packaged in plastic bags. You can play instantly, so it's Christmas morning-friendly, but lacking points for Earth-friendly.

Included are: several different colours of sand, small gems, glittery stones, 4 characters, an arbour, a rainbow, 2 magic trees, instructions, 2 double-ended tools, cylindrical terrarium cover, plus of course the actual garden base itself - in shocking pink!

It's almost Summer and a great time to get children outdoors and learning about where fruit and vegetables come from and how they are grown. We're working in a paid partnership with Sudocrem to promote gardening in schools and show just what a difference it can make.


In a recent survey, 90% of children said that they would like a garden at school. The whole process of planting and raising plants includes maths, science and a host of other subjects, as well as giving your child skills for life. Enjoying and even eating the end results will give anyone a real sense of pride - plus the fresher the produce, the more vitamins and flavour it has!

This Summer Sudocrem are donating 20 Get Out and Grow Kits worth £160 to UK schools and I'm delighted to say I will be giving one of them away on this blog. The kits contain everything the school needs to make a start with their own garden, including children’s wheelbarrows, gardening gloves, mini-trowels, seeds and lessons on how to make the most of a school garden.

Wild Nature Press have two excellent book releases for children this spring and they've sent us a copy of each for review, plus I'll be giving away a copy to one of my readers. Gorgeous large scale hardbacked books full of information and colour images, they're perfect for any youngster who wants to 'grow your own'. Spectacular Plants covers exactly what you'd imagine - the strangest, oddest, most colourful and carnivorous plants you can grow at home...


Perfect for readers aged around 8-12, even the contents page is exciting. This Royal Horticultural Society endorsed book starts with an explanation of how plants feed, grow and reproduce and then plants are split into sections:

Carnivorous Plants, Unbelievable Flowers, World's Smelliest Flowers, Funky Fruit & Veg, Sensitive Plants and then Unbelievable Spectacular Plants (including record breakers).

I first fell in love with Engino at BlogOn Conference. Brand new to the UK, this construction system was developed by Costas Sisamos, a Teacher from Cyprus. He has degrees in Education and Engineering, and wanted to make a system of modular connectors that could be used to build quickly and easily, creating fully functional technological models.


The aim of Engino is to inspire children to become better problem solvers and future innovators, a message I wholeheartedly agree with... Teach your children to build and programme robots, not be one.


The Greenhouse itself arrives in a surprisingly small box and there is minimal packaging. You can open and start building immediately, so this one is definitely Christmas morning-friendly.

Being asked to write about grass alternatives is easy for me because it's something my partner and I have discussed at length. My lawn is completely trashed. I mean seriously wrecked. For the last year all the local children have come and played in our garden and used it as a park, and the lawn proves it. I really am not complaining. We have a big garden and it would be a shame to see it wasted, but it's had 10 year's worth of normal family wear and tear in the last 12 months alone... and there isn't a lot of lawn left...


I live in the swampland of the North. My local area is so peaty that my tap water has sediment. Seriously. We made the mistake of buying a white shower curtain once. After a week it looked like someone had tried to colour it in with a brown felt tip. The peat in our soil holds tons of water and protects us from floods when there is heavy rain, but it means the grass is full of springy moss and the lawn is generally too wet to sit on. In a move of unlikely genius we put the swing and the trampoline over the wettest bits. It's definitely hidden it helped...

My Fairy Garden might seem an unusual product for my boys and I to promote, but pretty much all children love miniature gardening. Indoors or outside, it's an excellent way to celebrate the arrival of Spring at last!

Getting closer to nature through plants teaches children about life cycles and gives them a better understanding of where a lot of their food comes from. It helps them learn about taking care for living things and loads of other skills that will be useful forever. Growing plants is science!


This Easter My Fairy Garden had the idea to create a beautiful Easter Basket and one of my readers can win all the sets they need to fill one for themselves. The prize includes a Fairy Picnic Basket, Fairy Watering Can, Fairy Flower Pot and Magic Bean Pot (basket, cellophane, ribbon, flowers and chicks not included in prize)...

Some review items are far more exciting than others, and the Little Tikes Riga Swing Set is incredibly exciting! My boys spend a lot of time playing outside, but the only large equipment they've ever had has been passed down from their big siblings, and they have never owned a swing aside from an old baby swing.

I'm pleased to say that this year we've been chosen by Wilko to be Wild Bird Bloggers. We're really lucky in that we have a quite large garden, and although we're in a town, we have countryside very nearby. We have a lot of birds who visit and live in our garden.


Wilko sent me a multi-purpose nesting box, a wooden bird table, a cage seed feeder and a bag of wild bird seed mix. When the boys came home from school they were genuinely excited and had a lot of questions about where we were going to put everything.

We are lucky in that we have a big garden. Most of the wildlife are very welcome - we have a hedgehog and an owl (who poos consistantly over my van wherever I park it), we've lots of birds and butterflies and occasionally we have a squirrel or two. Unfortunately we also have a huge amount of slugs.

I love growing edible plants and I think it teaches valuable lessons to children. Growing your own food teaches about the life cycle, and the amount of effort required to make food. It encourages your children to try new tastes, and have pride in their own achievements.

With only potatoes and onions surviving outside, plus wild berries and herbs, we are bored of disappointment and do the most we can to help our plants survive, including starting them off inside and growing them inside on a windowsill.