Garden fun

Gardening memories made today:

• Kutey standing in the bright orange bucket to stomp the weeds down, while Kiddo held it steady. ( I took a mental picture of that one. So fun!)
• Kiddo quietly and carefully trying to catch a robin, then being spooked when the robin took off!
• Kiddo literally collapsing into the garden bed stating, "I would not want to be a pioneer!" We had just discussed how they had to clear their own land to farm.
• Kutey stating "This is a very symbiotic relationship." She is 5. I didn't teach her that.
  
• Kiddo announcing every worm he found. There were zillions of worms. Every shovelful I scooped had at least 2. So "Worm!" was kind of an understatement!
• Kutey "planting" her shovel in the garden, then telling me we had a new plant growing.
• Both kids lugging the bucket down the hill to empty it, after they had stomped it down so many times that it was deceptively heavy! They made it, but it was funny to watch.
• Bugs, bugs, and more bugs! Each needing to be observed and identified, well, at least observed!
• The kids coming back from dumping the bucket as Minions from Despicable Me. I couldn't understand them, but they were cracking up!
  

We headed out to the garden this afternoon before it started to rain. Again. Sigh. Kinda tired of this. It is better than severe weather, but it gets old. Especially when it seems to always hit on the weekend!

We managed to get about 1/3 of the first bed cleared. That is about half of what has to be cleared in that bed. The irises are in one corner, the thyme in another, so it is the space in the two other corners that has to be cleared if I want to plant anything. I pulled yards and yards of grass roots. Literally. Ugh. Gardening, however, was so much more fun with the kids there to entertain me!

Garden Challenge Post #3

Post #3? Already? the Homeschool Village's Garden Challenge is really flying by! You can read our first posts here.

The weather has been interesting. We had a slow spring, meaning planting had to be delayed. Then we have had rain, followed by more rain. It was already wet, the rain just made it wetter. Not exactly inspiring me to garden! Add to that the fact that we have been busier than I thought we would be, and well, you get this:



Our garden. Or not. We did get the tree out of it. We spent a day in the cold and the rain burning it in the backyard fire pit after I was told the cost of hauling it away. I am seeing more backyard fires in our future...

The fence has not been erected yet, but given that the deer are regular and frequent visitors to our yard (not that I have seen them often, their droppings give them away!), we definitely need one.* We also have baby bunnies living in our yard. Yeah, they could end a garden pretty fast, too. So planting isn't an option yet.

What does that mean for our garden? Well, it means likely that we will container garden again this year. That isn't the end of the world. Though with no major vacations planned for the summer, this was a good summer to have a garden. Time and weather were not on our side this spring. We'll work on the fence over the summer and hopefully be ready to go by next planting season! I am scaling back our garden plans. We will have two to 4 tomato plants, in containers, likely on the deck. We will have 2 bell pepper plants, in containers, again likely on the deck! We will try to plant some herbs in the lower part of the container, to have our pizza garden. And we will still think about the sunflowers Kutey so desperately wants to grow. The deer left them alone for a while last summer, so maybe we can plant them and then get the fence up before they get big enough for the deer. We'll see.

In the meantime, there is thyme!

Everywhere in the garden. Thyme has spread over maybe two-thirds of the garden. I planted thyme several years ago, and it just keeps spreading, and spreading, and spreading!

And there are irises!

I totally forgot about these. My neighbor asked me a few years ago if she could plant them in the corner of my garden temporarily. She had received them as a gift, but wasn't sure where she wanted them. They had to get in the ground. Temporary became permanent, which isn't really a problem. They are doing quite well where they are and should be blooming in a couple of weeks!

*We have seen deer. Six once, nine another time. Shortly after seeing the nine, I was out walking in the yard in the dark, enjoying the stars and the frogs, when I heard something huff at me. I moved very, VERY fast, away from the sound and toward the only light available, my neighbors backyard fire. The neighbors had a good chuckle at my deer encounter. Judging by the sound, I was actually pretty close to them. A little spooky! So I know the deer are present!

Garden Challenge Post #2

It has already been a month since first post for the Homeschool Village's Garden Challenge, which means it is time for the second post!

I'd love to say we have our garden planned, that we have been out digging the new dirt in, that we are ready to plant, that the weather has cooperated. I'd love to say that the tree has been taken out of the garden. The reality, however, is that our garden looks like this:


Pretty sure the garden is still under there...

Not better. Worse in fact. None of the tree has been cleared out. Much more of the tree has been placed in the garden, to save the grass. So step one is still: Clear out the dead tree. The kids are not really interested in helping with that. Nor, honestly, is hubby. It seems I will need to hire "a tree guy," to come in and take it away. FUN! At least the tree has been cut down completely. No more chain dangerously stuck in it.



We have been thinking about what to plant. I came across a Lowe's ad with yard and garden ideas (I am working on finding a link, I'll update if I do!). There was a "Pizza Garden" in it. Two containers, one with tomato and chives, the other with bell peppers, oregano, and parsley. The kids and I discussed the idea and decided it sounded like fun. So our containers will have those things. I cleared out the remnants of last year's tomatoes, and emptied the dirt into the garden. I think new dirt is a good idea.





I also emptied the plants out of the front half barrel. It is usually planted with flowers Kutey's picks out. We'll probably do the same this year. She doesn't pick them until she sees them at the nursery.







This space is outside my front door, along the garage. It is screaming to be filled with planters for herbs and vegetables. It gets pretty good sun, so I am thinking maybe a few tomatoes here, too. It has the added benefit of being out of the general range of these:



Yep, still gonna need that fence. Kiddo and Daddy have been talking about what they will build.

I haven't been too worried about the garden. Our weather has been cold, cold, cold. We won't plant for a couple more weeks anyway. I also need a weekend when it isn't so rainy so we can actually get into the garden!

Garden Challenge Post #1

When I first read about The Homeschool Village's Garden Challenge, my first reaction was to laugh. It starts today. March 31. HA! Here in MN, there is no chance of planting outside for a minimum of 6 more weeks. Mid-May is much more realistic. Add to that the fact that my garden looks like this:



Yeah, not ready for garden season. That tree fell down in November, in the first heavy wet snow we had. It had a Y the center of which seems to have rotted somehow. The heavy wet snow was enough to pull the two sides apart. Hubby cleared the part that was in the neighbor's yard while it was snowing, but eventually the chain broke on his chainsaw, and, well, that is where it has been since November. Once the snow melted enough, he picked the branches up off the grass and threw them in the garden. Yep, right into my garden. Sigh.


See the chain, stuck right in the tree?

So, the first part of our garden plan is "clear out dead tree." After that, we'll need to do some maintenance on the garden soil. Truthfully, we need to get soil. What is in that garden has been terrible for growing anything the last several years. So in all likelihood we'll have to buy some organic compost and topsoil. Lots of organic compost and topsoil.

The kids first comment about it being garden planning time was, "We need a bigger fence, to keep out the deer!" They are right, the last few gardens we have planted have yielded nothing for us. The deer either ate the vegetables before they were ready, ate the blossoms, or simply ate the plants. Kutey was particularly devastated last year when the deer ate her sunflowers before they even approached blooming. Sigh. So a fence. To keep out the deer. Step 3.


This bed won't have much planted in it. It gets too much shade.

Then, and only then, can we plant. We have 2 8 x 8 gardens. I only plan to plant one of them. the other one gets little sun because I have allowed a cottonwood tree to grow up in it. There are also 2 lilac bushes, placed in the garden "until we figure out where to put them," 7 or 8 years ago, which are now 4+ feet tall. The sunflowers go on the sunny edge of that bed.

In the other 8x8 bed, tomatoes, bell peppers, zucchini, and perhaps squash. Kutey would like carrots, so we'll see. Maybe some green onions. I also have 2 containers that I plant cherry tomatoes in, and hope to add another planter. If I manage that, I'll plant some herbs. Not thyme. I have enough thyme. It actually grows in my grass, believe it or not. The one thing that the garden has been able to support and the deer don't eat. But neither do we!

I have never done "square foot gardening," but this year that is sort of what the plan is. I found this article useful. We'll see if we actually end up with anything like that!

Since it will be a while before we can plant anything in our garden, we are having some fun with this:



I created a grid that matches our garden, 8 x 8, and then made 1 x 1 squares with vegetables on them. The idea is to make the garden the way we want it on the paper. That way, once we are ready to plant, we'll have it all figured out, right?

Planting time

We started planting our gardens today. It is still early to plant around here, but we have had some unusually warm weather, which has us all itching to get the gardens planted.

We only planted a few seeds, and most of those had to be started indoors anyway. We planted a variety of bell peppers. One seed packet is a mixture of 5 colors of pepper. I am way too excited about them. I would love to see purple peppers in my garden. Given that Kutey can eat half a bell pepper in a sitting, having them growing in our garden would be a treat. The other packet was a green/red bell pepper. If they all grow and produce, we should have plenty to freeze for the winter!

We also planted some morning glories and violas. Kutey picked them out when I was looking at the vegetables with Kiddo and Hubby. She really likes her flowers. Both are seeds, but they seemed to be hardier seeds, from what I read on the back of the packet. Let's hope they survive!

Kiddo and Kutey wanted to help with everything. They weeded, dug, raked, planted, watered, and generally got in there and got dirty. I can't wait to get the rest of the garden going, too! We have carrots (three colors!), zucchini, and summer squash to plant, and I'll get some tomato plants from the nursery (I don't do those from seed...I don't know why.)

Gardening

This spring, Kiddo got it in his head that we should have a garden. Actually, I think it started last fall when we read Pumpkin Jack and he decided he wanted to grow pumpkins. We have a garden, but it has not been tended since Kiddo was born. You can imagine the state it is in. I have tried to pull the grasses out once a summer, but I haven't been thorough. So having a garden seemed like a big undertaking. And Kiddo had big plans, as usual! Living in the north as we do, the season is quite short and planting seeds out of doors requires one to be quite attentive and get them in at the first possible moment. I don't plan ahead well, so we didn't hit that. I also didn't have the forethought to plant them inside first (well, I did have the thought, I just didn't have the action). So it seemed our garden was not to be this year.

But then I started clearing the garden out. It took many hours, on multiple days, but it is beginning to look like a habitable space again! And Kiddo has gotten excited about it again. He spent this afternoon out weeding with me, pulling more than one cartload of grass down the hill in the back yard to the compost pile. I bought several tomato plants, 3 pepper plants, and 2 zucchini plants. I also bought sunflower seeds, at Kutey's request. Apparently she doesn't care about the vegetables (though she loves to eat all of them), but wants to make sure we have flowers.

We are about ready to put the plants in the garden. Then the gardening lessons will really get to take off. Kiddo still wants to start plants from seed, so we'll be planning next years garden with plenty of time to get things started!