Actually, it's a little past time to start my garden, but whatever. My philosophy is throw it in the ground and see what happens, and that's just what I've done. I have 7 cherry tomato plants going (the only kind I have any luck with), 5 kale plants, 2 collard plants plus some collard seeds I planted just today, 2 green bean seedlings plus 2 different kinds of green beans I planted today as well, and a few onion sprouty things. And some marigolds to keep the tomatoes company. Pretty good for the little tiny plot I have in my little tiny backyard, I think!
So far I've lost one collard seedling, several of the onion sprouts, (I planted about 6 or 7), and a bunch of the green bean seeds when a critter dug them up. (Which is why I only have 2 green bean seedlings; there should have been more!!) The tomatoes, kale, and collards were all seedlings purchased from Home Depot. The onions weren't seedlings; they were in a dried bunch. I don't have much experience with bulbs, but I'm guessing that's what they were. I had about 6 to 8 each of the kale and collard seedlings but I took way too long to get them in the ground so I was lucky any of them survived! I didn't have room for all of them by a long shot, but of the ones I planted I am shocked I only lost one, and the survivors look great! We can harvest from them right now but only a few leaves so I'm leaving them alone for a bit longer. They are both such hardy plants, and tasty, too! They grow like crazy; we'll be over run with kale in a few more weeks. The 2 collard plants might not be enough; I'm hoping the seeds I put in the ground today will sprout for me. We'll see!
I love growing my own food; I wish we had a bigger back yard so I could get a larger garden going, but this one is a great learning experience. I've learned a few things over the past several years of gardening that have made my previously black thumb a little greenish, things like you can't plant tomatoes in the same spot 2 years in a row; the dead leaves falling off the trees in my neighborhood make a great mulch; I can't grow large tomatoes to save my life, or lettuce, or spinach; tomato hornworms and cabbage worms are all horrid little creatures; and most importantly, home grown food is the absolute best!!
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
Friday, March 28, 2014
Friday, September 30, 2011
Growning Things
Friends gave us some cherry tomato seedlings last year that did very well in our garden. We're starting up again this year but we didn't get any seedlings. I'm trying to start some on my own and so far, so good, although I did start a few weeks later than I should have. (Hopefully that won't matter too much.) I started a bunch of seeds in a 50 block starter kit, and not just tomatoes. I planted a variety of veggies and I mapped it all out so I know what's what. (We had issues with that last year when we planted seeds directly into the garden. We didn't use markers at first, then we used markers for later plantings but they faded. Don't use sharpie markers on plastic tabs that will sit in the sun.)
So here's what I planted on September 16th:
(I put several seeds in each pot so I'm listing the contents per pot, not per seed)
In the first tray I planted:
3 Brandywine tomatoes
3 Jelly Bean tomatoes
4 Red Cherry tomatoes (we have better luck with the smaller tomatoes; we never seem to be able to get the big ones to maturity without splitting)
In the second tray I planted:
4 Roma tomatoes
3 broccoli
3 yellow squash
In the third tray I planted:
5 Paris Island Romaine
5 Bibb lettuce
In the fourth tray I planted:
4 Kale
3 Spinach (which didn't sprout; wrong time of year but I was trying anyway)
3 Swiss Chard
In the fifth tray I planted:
10 Tendergreen Improved Beans (bush)
These did well for us last year when The Wild Child planted them, but we never had more than a few beans at a time. With more plants, maybe we'll be able to harvest enough for a side dish at some point!
Now that almost everything has sprouted I'm transplanting. I put the lettuce in a large round decorative clay pot with legs. I put the tomatoes from tray 1 in 5" peat pots until they get bigger. I don't think they're ready to go in the ground yet, but they definitely need more room to grow. I haven't gotten to the other tomatoes or seedlings yet. I'll put the rest of the tomatoes in the 5" pots within the next few days. I want to get the beans and squash in the ground since they are BIG. That leaves the broccoli, kale, and Swiss chard; I haven't decided what to do with those yet. If I want spinach I'll have to watch the calendar a little more closely; it's not going to sprout now.
I have a lot of prep work to do in the actual garden. The Wild Child and I planted watermelon at the end of the last season, a little late in the year for them to be any good. Those 2 or 3 plants took over, however! They produced for us, just nothing that tasted decent, darn it. They provided a complete and total ground cover that I'll have to dig up over the weekend. I'm also expanding from 6x8 to roughly 12x6. (Due to the shape of the yard it won't be a perfect rectangle.) I have to buy more edgers and dirt to fill it in. It's a raised bed, sort of. It's only a few inches higher than the yard but it worked last year. I'm planting the tomatoes in the new section since I've heard that you shouldn't plant the same kind of plant in the same spot two years in a row.
All in all, I'm pleased that almost every seed came up. Now if I can only get it all going and producing veggies! I'm kind of worried about the squirrel who's taken up residence in one of the palm trees in our back yard, but he didn't seem to bother the garden last year so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The dogs chase him off but they're only outside for a limited amount of time every day. (And keeping the dogs out of the garden is another issue; hopefully the border fencing I bought will work.)
We really enjoyed the tomatoes last year. We ate tomato/basil/cheese sandwiches on baguettes at least once a week, sometimes more. We haven't eaten them since the tomato plants stopped producing good fruit; grocery store tomatoes don't cut it. Nothing else grew successfully for us. We got a few yummy beans and a few yucky watermelons, and that's about it. I didn't pay attention to planting times and I threw the seeds right into the ground, which could have been the problem. Ahem. I'm paying more attention this year so I'm hoping for more variety than just the tomatoes. (And basil, but I don't really count that since I bought it at a good size and didn't grow it from seed, and I didn't get it to grow much at all after I bought it anyway.)
We'll see what happens this year!
So here's what I planted on September 16th:
(I put several seeds in each pot so I'm listing the contents per pot, not per seed)
In the first tray I planted:
3 Brandywine tomatoes
3 Jelly Bean tomatoes
4 Red Cherry tomatoes (we have better luck with the smaller tomatoes; we never seem to be able to get the big ones to maturity without splitting)
In the second tray I planted:
4 Roma tomatoes
3 broccoli
3 yellow squash
In the third tray I planted:
5 Paris Island Romaine
5 Bibb lettuce
In the fourth tray I planted:
4 Kale
3 Spinach (which didn't sprout; wrong time of year but I was trying anyway)
3 Swiss Chard
In the fifth tray I planted:
10 Tendergreen Improved Beans (bush)
These did well for us last year when The Wild Child planted them, but we never had more than a few beans at a time. With more plants, maybe we'll be able to harvest enough for a side dish at some point!
Now that almost everything has sprouted I'm transplanting. I put the lettuce in a large round decorative clay pot with legs. I put the tomatoes from tray 1 in 5" peat pots until they get bigger. I don't think they're ready to go in the ground yet, but they definitely need more room to grow. I haven't gotten to the other tomatoes or seedlings yet. I'll put the rest of the tomatoes in the 5" pots within the next few days. I want to get the beans and squash in the ground since they are BIG. That leaves the broccoli, kale, and Swiss chard; I haven't decided what to do with those yet. If I want spinach I'll have to watch the calendar a little more closely; it's not going to sprout now.
I have a lot of prep work to do in the actual garden. The Wild Child and I planted watermelon at the end of the last season, a little late in the year for them to be any good. Those 2 or 3 plants took over, however! They produced for us, just nothing that tasted decent, darn it. They provided a complete and total ground cover that I'll have to dig up over the weekend. I'm also expanding from 6x8 to roughly 12x6. (Due to the shape of the yard it won't be a perfect rectangle.) I have to buy more edgers and dirt to fill it in. It's a raised bed, sort of. It's only a few inches higher than the yard but it worked last year. I'm planting the tomatoes in the new section since I've heard that you shouldn't plant the same kind of plant in the same spot two years in a row.
All in all, I'm pleased that almost every seed came up. Now if I can only get it all going and producing veggies! I'm kind of worried about the squirrel who's taken up residence in one of the palm trees in our back yard, but he didn't seem to bother the garden last year so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The dogs chase him off but they're only outside for a limited amount of time every day. (And keeping the dogs out of the garden is another issue; hopefully the border fencing I bought will work.)
We really enjoyed the tomatoes last year. We ate tomato/basil/cheese sandwiches on baguettes at least once a week, sometimes more. We haven't eaten them since the tomato plants stopped producing good fruit; grocery store tomatoes don't cut it. Nothing else grew successfully for us. We got a few yummy beans and a few yucky watermelons, and that's about it. I didn't pay attention to planting times and I threw the seeds right into the ground, which could have been the problem. Ahem. I'm paying more attention this year so I'm hoping for more variety than just the tomatoes. (And basil, but I don't really count that since I bought it at a good size and didn't grow it from seed, and I didn't get it to grow much at all after I bought it anyway.)
We'll see what happens this year!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Garden Pictures
At long last, here are some pictures of my gardens.
This is the planting bed in front of my house. We have a circular drive and this is tucked into the landscaped half circle that's in front of it. All of the plants are supposed to attract butterflies. And they're P's! Purple pansies and purple petunias. (And a few other plants, but the pansies are the stars.)
Tomatoes!! We planted a few other vegetables that didn't do well but the tomatoes took off. I've never been able to grow them in the past but that all changed, thanks to the seedlings from two of my very good friends.
Milkweed plants. We have a few caterpillars on them now and three chrysalids in the area. (That we've been able to find; there may be more tucked around in little secret butterfly hidey-holes.)
The three chrysalids. The picture of the one on my watering can isn't great but you can make it out if you look in the shadowy part.
Martha Jr. and I are worried about this one clinging to a post. It looks a little malformed.
I love my butterflies! What started out as an educational, limited term project for the kids has turned into one of my favorite hobbies. I started with just planting milkweed but that has expanded into planting flowers for nectar for the butterflies in areas of my yard that I previously neglected. It's good for the butterflies and looks lovely to boot- how many hobbies can you say that about!
This is the planting bed in front of my house. We have a circular drive and this is tucked into the landscaped half circle that's in front of it. All of the plants are supposed to attract butterflies. And they're P's! Purple pansies and purple petunias. (And a few other plants, but the pansies are the stars.)
Tomatoes!! We planted a few other vegetables that didn't do well but the tomatoes took off. I've never been able to grow them in the past but that all changed, thanks to the seedlings from two of my very good friends.
Milkweed plants. We have a few caterpillars on them now and three chrysalids in the area. (That we've been able to find; there may be more tucked around in little secret butterfly hidey-holes.)
The three chrysalids. The picture of the one on my watering can isn't great but you can make it out if you look in the shadowy part.
Martha Jr. and I are worried about this one clinging to a post. It looks a little malformed.
I love my butterflies! What started out as an educational, limited term project for the kids has turned into one of my favorite hobbies. I started with just planting milkweed but that has expanded into planting flowers for nectar for the butterflies in areas of my yard that I previously neglected. It's good for the butterflies and looks lovely to boot- how many hobbies can you say that about!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
How Does Your Garden Grow?
Our various gardening projects are coming along nicely. After watching 4 Monarch butterflies emerge from their chrysalids successfully, we have 5 more caterpillars on our milkweed. My flowers in our front planting bed are looking lovely- it's the best grouping of flowers I've managed to put together in that bed so far. Our veggie garden has produced a ton of cherry tomatoes. Not much else, but lots and lots of tomatoes. We have watermelon and pumpkin seedlings; so far, so good on those, but who knows if we'll actually get fruit out of them?
The kids and I are experimental gardeners- we just throw seeds in the ground and see what comes up! Our latest experiments are seedlings we bought at Home Depot. The kids spotted some fruit producing plants and begged me to buy them, so I did. We got a fig tree (it's about a foot tall so we won't get any figs from it for a while, if it survives) and DH put it in the ground for me over the weekend. We also have pomegranate, blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry. Oh, and of course strawberry, but it's too late in the season for anything to come of that. I don't think we'll get anything much out of the other berry plants either since we're pretty far south, but we'll see.
Our worm bin is up and running, sort of. We bought worms; I haven't poked around too much to check on them since they apparently don't like to be disturbed. I know we're doing something wrong, though since we have a ton of fruit flies. (We keep the worm bin outside on our covered back patio so the flies won't get in the house but some of them have anyway, drat it all.) I checked on the problem solving guide where we found the instructions for the bin to see if I can do anything about the flies and it is fixable. I'm going to add more soil, covering the food scraps that are currently in there, and change out the newspaper bedding to see if that helps.
The worm bin led to a 4-H speech for The Wild Child. We attended our 4-H County Events last weekend where each of the kids had to present a short speech. The Wild Child demonstrated "How to Build a Worm Bin", Martha, Jr. also gave a demonstration on how to make a chevron pattern out of yarn, and The Eldest spoke about how to use a grid for art. They all did really well, if I do say so myself, and Martha Jr. walked away with a blue ribbon AND a fancy purple ribbon! She's also advancing to regional competition; she is tickled pink. I'm tickled pink that regionals are NOT on the same day as her piano recital a week later!
This is our first year in 4-H. I tried to sign the kids up previously but for whatever reason I just couldn't swing it. This year we went to their open house and found an old friend running a club; we signed up immediately. There is a big emphasis on parliamentary procedure and public speaking which I really like, so 4-H offers different benefits from Girl Scouts. It's not all agriculture and sewing, which is a common image people have of 4-H. They also offer a heavy dose of science; the first project we participated in with our club was science related. I hate that I didn't find this group earlier so that The Eldest could have participated longer, but oh, well. We'll be involved from here on out with the younger ones, for sure, and I think they'll get a lot out of it. Martha Jr. even found a friend in the club- she took ballet classes very briefly a few years ago and one of the girls that she especially liked from her class is in 4-H. They have a lot in common so I'm happy that they have rediscovered each other.
That's all for now- my gardens are calling me!
The kids and I are experimental gardeners- we just throw seeds in the ground and see what comes up! Our latest experiments are seedlings we bought at Home Depot. The kids spotted some fruit producing plants and begged me to buy them, so I did. We got a fig tree (it's about a foot tall so we won't get any figs from it for a while, if it survives) and DH put it in the ground for me over the weekend. We also have pomegranate, blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry. Oh, and of course strawberry, but it's too late in the season for anything to come of that. I don't think we'll get anything much out of the other berry plants either since we're pretty far south, but we'll see.
Our worm bin is up and running, sort of. We bought worms; I haven't poked around too much to check on them since they apparently don't like to be disturbed. I know we're doing something wrong, though since we have a ton of fruit flies. (We keep the worm bin outside on our covered back patio so the flies won't get in the house but some of them have anyway, drat it all.) I checked on the problem solving guide where we found the instructions for the bin to see if I can do anything about the flies and it is fixable. I'm going to add more soil, covering the food scraps that are currently in there, and change out the newspaper bedding to see if that helps.
The worm bin led to a 4-H speech for The Wild Child. We attended our 4-H County Events last weekend where each of the kids had to present a short speech. The Wild Child demonstrated "How to Build a Worm Bin", Martha, Jr. also gave a demonstration on how to make a chevron pattern out of yarn, and The Eldest spoke about how to use a grid for art. They all did really well, if I do say so myself, and Martha Jr. walked away with a blue ribbon AND a fancy purple ribbon! She's also advancing to regional competition; she is tickled pink. I'm tickled pink that regionals are NOT on the same day as her piano recital a week later!
This is our first year in 4-H. I tried to sign the kids up previously but for whatever reason I just couldn't swing it. This year we went to their open house and found an old friend running a club; we signed up immediately. There is a big emphasis on parliamentary procedure and public speaking which I really like, so 4-H offers different benefits from Girl Scouts. It's not all agriculture and sewing, which is a common image people have of 4-H. They also offer a heavy dose of science; the first project we participated in with our club was science related. I hate that I didn't find this group earlier so that The Eldest could have participated longer, but oh, well. We'll be involved from here on out with the younger ones, for sure, and I think they'll get a lot out of it. Martha Jr. even found a friend in the club- she took ballet classes very briefly a few years ago and one of the girls that she especially liked from her class is in 4-H. They have a lot in common so I'm happy that they have rediscovered each other.
That's all for now- my gardens are calling me!
Friday, March 11, 2011
My Seed Box
Over the years the kids and I have accumulated a lot of seeds, to the point where I had little piles of seed packets in several locations all around the house. I had no idea what I had or when to plant it, and I finally realized it was a ridiculous situation. Organization had to be applied, especially now that we are gardening and the chance of actually PLANTING some of our seeds is high. I gathered all the seeds (I hope)and put them in a big pile. I got out an empty photo storage box from my scrapbooking days (another hobby I'm not keeping up with) and started sorting.
I used the dividers in the box to make a section for each month. (Luckily there were 12 dividers; very handy.) The seeds were filed according to the month when they can be planted. Where a range was given on the seed packet, they went in the closest upcoming planting month. Using that method, we have a HUGE section for March! There's a lot that can go in the ground right now, which is fun. The Wild Child is working on a 4H project so we cleared all of our planting bed except for the tomato plants. (The only plants doing well anyway.) We put down more compost and fresh soil to build the bed up even more, and now it's ready to go. I'm hoping we'll get a chance to get out there and plant more seeds this weekend!
After we finally put the Christmas decorations away, that is...
I used the dividers in the box to make a section for each month. (Luckily there were 12 dividers; very handy.) The seeds were filed according to the month when they can be planted. Where a range was given on the seed packet, they went in the closest upcoming planting month. Using that method, we have a HUGE section for March! There's a lot that can go in the ground right now, which is fun. The Wild Child is working on a 4H project so we cleared all of our planting bed except for the tomato plants. (The only plants doing well anyway.) We put down more compost and fresh soil to build the bed up even more, and now it's ready to go. I'm hoping we'll get a chance to get out there and plant more seeds this weekend!
After we finally put the Christmas decorations away, that is...
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Our Latest Project
While I was having my D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) Day yesterday, the kids kept themselves busy with our new garden. I am a green thumb wannabe so this summer I decided to get ready for a fall vegetable garden. I put out a 6'x8' tarp, weighed down with bricks, to kill the grass in the area I have mapped out for the veggies. (Which works beautifully with no harmful chemicals, by the way.) I dragged DH with me to the local home supply store and we bought brick edger thingies for a border, then we went back last weekend and bought dirt and compost. The kids pulled up the grass once it was dead so all we had to do was dump the dirt in. Our garden is ready for planting so now I'm at an impasse. I know it's about the right time to start planting, but I'm not sure if it's exactly the right time, and I'm not sure how to lay everything out. I have some gardening books so I'm going to look it up but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
The kids got tired of waiting and took matters into their own hands yesterday while I was immersed in The Hunger Games. They kept asking me if they could plant seeds. I didn't want the seeds going directly into the garden yet so I told them to start them in the little seed pots I bought a while ago; kept them busy for hours. So now we have all these little seed pots and no idea what's in them. Oh, boy.
Pretty typical of my gardening projects so far, I must say. I have the best of intentions but something always goes wrong. Like the composting. I barreled into that one and now it's all messed up. First, we just started throwing food scraps in the compost bin, then it was getting all smelly, moldy, maggot-y, and just downright disgusting, so I did some research and found out you have to layer the food scraps with organic matter like dead leaves, grass clippings, that sort of thing. Well, I don't have a lot of that sort of thing because we have our yard mowed by a landscape company. So I bought a bale of hay, but I left it out and it got all moldy in the rain before I could find a bin the right size to store it in. I don't know if that mold is a problem for composting, but it puffs up when I try to pull hay off the bushel and that can't be good for my asthma.
Then there was the Round Up debacle. I told my yard guys to never, ever, ever use that vile chemical on my yard. I told them that years ago when they first started working for us. I haven't reminded them; I hardly ever see them since they usually wind up mowing our lawn when we aren't home. I was home once recently when they were here and asked them to take care of some over grown grass for me. I meant BY HAND, and I would pay them extra for it. I didn't think to remind them about the Round Up ban on my yard, so they sprayed it on the grass the next time they came, when I wasn't home. That weekend, I was so aggravated when I saw that they had not pulled the grass and went out there to pull it out myself. When I was all done, DH pointed out that it was awfully easy to pull out, and it looked like it had been sprayed with a weed killer. I thought it just wasn't getting enough sun or something, but when he said that I looked more closely and realized he was right. I was so upset I called and fired the landscapers. (I've since talked to the owner and re-hired them, with the promise that he will NEVER use that stuff on my yard again.) Unfortunately, however, I put some of that sprayed grass in my compost bin. Now I can't use it on the veggie garden. I don't want it to go to waste completely so I'll use it around the hedges when it's ready. But I don't have it for the garden anymore, which is a bummer.
But that's typical of my garden projects. Something always gets messed up somehow. Sigh.
The kids got tired of waiting and took matters into their own hands yesterday while I was immersed in The Hunger Games. They kept asking me if they could plant seeds. I didn't want the seeds going directly into the garden yet so I told them to start them in the little seed pots I bought a while ago; kept them busy for hours. So now we have all these little seed pots and no idea what's in them. Oh, boy.
Pretty typical of my gardening projects so far, I must say. I have the best of intentions but something always goes wrong. Like the composting. I barreled into that one and now it's all messed up. First, we just started throwing food scraps in the compost bin, then it was getting all smelly, moldy, maggot-y, and just downright disgusting, so I did some research and found out you have to layer the food scraps with organic matter like dead leaves, grass clippings, that sort of thing. Well, I don't have a lot of that sort of thing because we have our yard mowed by a landscape company. So I bought a bale of hay, but I left it out and it got all moldy in the rain before I could find a bin the right size to store it in. I don't know if that mold is a problem for composting, but it puffs up when I try to pull hay off the bushel and that can't be good for my asthma.
Then there was the Round Up debacle. I told my yard guys to never, ever, ever use that vile chemical on my yard. I told them that years ago when they first started working for us. I haven't reminded them; I hardly ever see them since they usually wind up mowing our lawn when we aren't home. I was home once recently when they were here and asked them to take care of some over grown grass for me. I meant BY HAND, and I would pay them extra for it. I didn't think to remind them about the Round Up ban on my yard, so they sprayed it on the grass the next time they came, when I wasn't home. That weekend, I was so aggravated when I saw that they had not pulled the grass and went out there to pull it out myself. When I was all done, DH pointed out that it was awfully easy to pull out, and it looked like it had been sprayed with a weed killer. I thought it just wasn't getting enough sun or something, but when he said that I looked more closely and realized he was right. I was so upset I called and fired the landscapers. (I've since talked to the owner and re-hired them, with the promise that he will NEVER use that stuff on my yard again.) Unfortunately, however, I put some of that sprayed grass in my compost bin. Now I can't use it on the veggie garden. I don't want it to go to waste completely so I'll use it around the hedges when it's ready. But I don't have it for the garden anymore, which is a bummer.
But that's typical of my garden projects. Something always gets messed up somehow. Sigh.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Gardening
I do NOT have a green thumb but I keep trying. Yesterday the little ones and I picked up a LARGE tomato plant at Costco with tomatoes already on it. Unfortunately there was also a LARGE caterpillar that had the same idea- yum, tomatoes! (Actually I think he was more interested in the leaves.) We found it before check out so we left that plant at the store; a kindly employee said he would take care of the caterpillar. (And he meant in a good way, not by killing it. He thought it was cute.) Google told us it was a tomato hornworm. Or tobacco hornworm. Whatever. It turns into a really big moth, which makes sense because it was a really big caterpillar. I've never seen a caterpillar that big before; it was easily as big as my middle finger! At first I thought it was a leaf that was all curled up. I started to touch it to figure out why it was curled up but before I made contact it MOVED!!! Startled the bejeezus out of me, but then I thought it was kind of cool and showed the kids. Creepy and cool all at the same time. Shudder.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Gardening with The Youngest, aka The Wild Child
I purchased a Topsy Turvy tomato planter a while ago along with some tomato seedlings and The Youngest, aka The Wild Child, has been bugging me to go ahead and plant them already! Well, it was complicated. I had to get DH motivated to put the hooky thing up on our patio overhang, and that took some time. He finally got around to it yesterday and The Youngest and I planted two of the seedlings today; he was tickled pink. Now we have an upside down tomato plant at our house, but I'm still not very optimistic that we'll get actual tomatoes. I've tried to grow veggies in the past but it never works out. We're all motivated to start out with, then we become forgetful and neglect the watering, and we never remember to fertilize, (and what are you supposed to fertilize with anyway; everything from the garden center sounds so... chemically), and they get bugs, but we don't want to spray pesticides in our yard, so we never get any output. Sigh. It's fun while it lasts, though!
Full credit to the photographer, The Wild Child himself!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Gardening
I get very envious when I see other blogs that talk about their lovely vegetable gardens. I don't have a green thumb, and even if I did our homeowner's association strictly forbids growing plants of an edible nature. (Shh, don't tell them about the basil and oregano I have growing... sort of... in the backyard!) I do believe it's important for kids to get out in the dirt, though, so even though we've got several strikes against us, I keep trying to get the kids involved in garden projects. Although I think growing food is more fun for kids, we've developed an interest in growing edible plants for some non-human types, namely butterflies. Our interest was sparked after a visit to a butterfly garden with The Middle Child's Brownie troop. They told us how easy it is to attract butterflies if you put out the right plants. Several trips to the local garden center later, we're in business. So far no butterflies, though. We can, however, count sore thighs (mine) and lots of mosquito bites. (Mine and The Middle Child's.)
Here's how everything turned out in our little butterfly garden:
PS: The kids were so excited when we saw a monarch butterfly on our half dead milkweed today!! (July 14th) The milkweed is across the yard from the flower garden so it's close by, but not pictured. The 5 plants have been sitting out in the planting bed in the pots we bought them in but we got them in the ground and watered them pretty quickly after that so most of them perked up a little. I have room for 5 more plants so it's time to head to the garden center again; if we get caterpillars we need more food for them!
Here's how everything turned out in our little butterfly garden:
PS: The kids were so excited when we saw a monarch butterfly on our half dead milkweed today!! (July 14th) The milkweed is across the yard from the flower garden so it's close by, but not pictured. The 5 plants have been sitting out in the planting bed in the pots we bought them in but we got them in the ground and watered them pretty quickly after that so most of them perked up a little. I have room for 5 more plants so it's time to head to the garden center again; if we get caterpillars we need more food for them!
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