Just Makes Me Smile

This just makes me smile everytime I walk through my kitchen.

My dream would be to have a garden where I could go through and put this together from my yard. That will be a while, considering my brown thumb.

I tried to grow sunflowers along our shed wall this year, but the rabbits enjoyed them when they sprouted. (As our dog slept soundly on our back porch, I'm sure!) Again, I thought sunflowers were something kids could grow.

But - I will persevere!

Until then, I will enjoy these beauties.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. After my last post, one might think I would not be planting anything for a while, but one does not know me very well if one thinks that. I am not a quitter. heh!

Actually, Ellie has a new project going and her first task is gardening. Also, for school I wanted to incorporate a butterfly garden into our birds and insects study, since the last chapter is on butterflies. Therefore, she and I worked very hard all day on her new butterfly and hummingbird garden.

First, we had to get all of the weeds out of the neglected flowerbed along our garage. It is really strange how neglected this particular flowerbed was, since it is a focal point of our backyard and we see it right outside the window from our kitchen and living room. It helped that a big rose bush blocked the view of the rest of the bed when I saw it from the kitchen. I could focus on all of those pretty knock-out roses and pretend the rest looked just as good. But the truth is, I couldn't seem to figure out what to do with it, so it sat. And got weedy. And it was a long, weedy dirt bed with one beautiful rose bush on one end.

Pretty.




As Ellie was working, she kept commenting about how it was like going into a jungle. A jungle that came up to her ankles - but a jungle nonetheless. At least it made the weeding more exciting for her. It gave her a great sense of accomplishment to finish that task (with my help, of course). She felt good about how many times she filled up her weed bucket and had to empty it. The better she felt about her hard work, the worse I felt about how bad I let the weeds get. It's okay - that's why we were out there. Gettin' stuff done and checking it off my to-do list. Oh, and teaching my kids about butterflies. I love school projects that involve marking things off my to-do list!

Then, it was off to Arbor Gate to buy plants. Did we measure the flowerbed and carefully plan what plants to buy and where we were going to plant them? No. We picked the ones we thought were pretty and stopped when our little red wagon was full. I think that's the best way to do it. Are you surprised my last garden was a flop? When we got home, we moved them around and decided where they would look best. Then, we planted them before our dog ate them. We'll get a few more plants to fill in the gaps, and then we just need to lay down some mulch.

What butterfly garden would be complete without Butterfly Bush?

Here are some plants that I don't remember the name of. We wrote them in the garden journal, though. Yes, we now have a garden journal. grin.





Here's the whole flowerbed. I can't wait until the plants start growing and filling the whole place up. See the pretty rose bush at the end?

Ellie is so proud of all of her hard work today. I love watching my kids work hard for something and feel good about it. She should feel good. It was stinkin' hot today!

Harvest Time

I am so thankful for the produce section of my local grocery store. I have complained in the past about the produce not looking so great. Now, I am going to be impressed with whatever makes it to the store.

I thought we would try a small garden this year. I have never had much of a green thumb, so I started small. Square foot gardening sounded perfect for me. I knew it would work. So, I put Tony and the kids to work and we started one 4X4 ft. garden. Enough for sixteen little planting areas. I knew it wouldn't be enough to fill our produce need, but I could supplement at the store. Yes, supplement. I stuck with "easy to grow" plants. The ones they usually recommend for kids' gardens since they are so easy to grow a kid could do it. Apparently, I should have let my kids do all of it.

Let me share a little of our harvest:

Okay - that's not just a little of our harvest. That's about it! I can't even make anything with that. I guess I can just throw them in the salad tonight. I thought beans were supposed to be a no-brainer. And, I didn't even know I planted cherry tomatoes. I also planted squash, cucumbers, cantaloupe, radishes, carrots, etc. Maybe I am not being patient enough. But, the radishes even flowered out without the radish at the bottom. I'm not claiming any gardening knowledge right now, but I really thought the plants were pretty much done producing once they flower out.

I guess if we were farmers, we would starve. I'm pretty disappointed. I have images in my head of being like Laura Ingalls Wilder. Living out in the wilderness and being able to cook and sew for my family. I wouldn't really want to live that way, but the realization that I couldn't even if I tried is heartbreaking to me.

At least it's just plants. I can throw them in the compost when I'm done with them. I don't feel as bad when I mess up the gardening as I do when I mess up with the chickens. They don't seem to appreciate being my practice chickens.

Bloomin' Aloe!

Look at this! Did you have any idea an aloe plant would bloom??? I had no idea. I totally neglect my aloes because every time I re-pot them, they immediately fill that pot with new babies. Then, they don't look very nice and I just look like I am neglecting my gardening duties. Which I am. But, I don't want my plants to reflect that. Seriously, we have a lifetime supply of sunburn care here at our house.

Now I'm not touching it until I see this bloom. I'll have to divide it later. I am so excited to see what this flower looks like. I'll post a picture for anyone who is as surprised as me - and who even cares. heh!

Update: Okay - that was pretty much it. That's what the bloom looks like. I was expecting it to open up wide. It turned a little more yellow, but when we got back home from vacation it wasn't worth a new picture. I still think it was cool!