A Garden

5/8/2012


The kids helped me make two lists: 
things we'd like to grow and things we'd like to eat. 

It looks like we will try our hand at: lettuce, sweet peas, green peppers, cucumbers, corn, tomatoes, broccoli, and cantaloupe. We've planted a few of these in the outside garden already. 


 This is a shot from an upstairs window overlooking our garden area. It's a nice big space. I doubt we'll use the entire space for veggies, so I may put some flowers in part of it. Why is it so big? Well, a friend came with a rototiller and we went hog wild with the space. It was previously just a bunch of weeds, so it looks 100% improved as a garden plot even if we plant nothing! :-)

We have planted some seeds inside. More than 100 in fact. We have cantaloupe, tomatoes and peppers starting to sprout. And we were just given some more seeds this weekend so I may try to sprout those as well.

I figure that as long as the kids have an interest in helping with this, we'll give it a try. It's like one HUGE outside science experiment.

We don't know what will grow. 
We know we have clay soil, which is a negative thing. 
We also have access to free mulch and compost, 
which is a positive thing. 
We also love the fact that seeds are so cheap that it won't take much produce to recoup the upfront costs. 
And maybe it's worth it even if nothing grows, to teach a few lessons to the kids and just enjoy working outside together.

So, garden 2012, here we come. 
I'll keep this blog updated with pictures and commentary as the summer progresses.

It's been 2 years since we've done any real gardening. Here's my blog post about our little garden in 2010. And I thought the kids were helpful back then... they will be able to carry much more responsibility with the garden this year!

1 comments:

Heather said...

Looks like a great space! We always have a garden, we always tend to grow more than we expect, and let the weeds go a little more than we want. But, it is fun! And those fresh tomatoes are absolutely worth it! I totally agree with the seed costs too, it is so inexpensive to buy seeds, and they keep for multiple years, so why not go for it!

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