Summer vacation keeps rolling along. How long until your kids go back to school? Are they spending too much time lounging on the couch? Here are a bunch of summer projects to trick your kids away from their air-conditioned sanctuary and out into the great outdoors of, er, your backyard.

Okay, okay. So the backyard is not the great outdoors. True. But the main thing is to get the kiddos out in the fresh air, learning about nature, and learning about the noble pursuit of maintaining a garden.

Getting their hands dirty
1. Ask them to help with the weeding. Pay them a small amount of pocket money for their time.

Sow wildflowers the fun way with seed bombs! The "bombs" -- balloons stuffed with a mixture of wildflower seeds, fertilizer, potting soil, and water -- are an eco-friendly innovation designed to encourage the spread of wildflower gardens.

These gardens can be created right in your own yard. Some folks are also using them to "regreen" ugly and neglected urban landscapes such as roadsides. Sure beats a bunch of barren concrete, don't you think?

Here's what you'll need: wildflower seeds of your choice, 1 funnel, 1 pack of water balloons, fertilizer pellets or powder, peatmoss or peat-based potting soil, and water. Use the funnel to hold the neck of each balloon open while you stuff in the "ingredients." Add the dry items first, then make sure to add enough water to make the whole mixture nice and wet.

Weeds, every lawn has them. Our blogger, Dan Chilton examined some alternative strategies for killing weeds without resorting to the use of expensive lawn care chemicals. Based on Dan's inspiration, I thought I'd give you a look at one of my "stay green" strategies for dealing with the nastiest weeds that pop up repeatedly in the middle of your yard. The trick to permanently eliminating your toughest weeds is to make sure that any root which remains in the ground cannot regenerate.