KinderGardens 2011, Week Eight

Isn't he the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Really, if he were any cuter, I'd be tempted to give him a name and put out food for him.
Oh wait...I'm already doing that.
Because he's helped himself to many tasty sprouts in the garden over the past few weeks.

We've been in and out of the picture with three-day trips.
I leave, there are bean plants.  I come back, there are fewer bean plants.

(Can't you hear the First grade math book now?  "Shayne had five bean plants in her garden.  Mr. Bunny came and ate three bean plants.  How many bean plants are left?")
 
Something had to be done, short of building a proper fence, which is not in the budget at this time.

Hence...the creation of my chicken wire bean towers!

We had the chicken wire and stakes in the garage.
My thought is that by the time the beans are tall enough to climb up and onto the sunflowers, they will be safe from pests.

All in all, I'm pleased with how things are going.
The potatoes are blossoming, and I have yet to see Colorado potato beetles.  (*Fingers crossed*)

Elsewhere in the realm of pest control, our plants in the shadier garden are sporting a little new bling in the form of copper bracelets.  Something in the copper is uncomfortable for slugs to crawl over---a chemical reaction of sorts.

Ahh...you noticed that there were no children in the garden photos?

We're in vacation mode---off for little visits with the ones we love.  This past week, that took us to Rochester, where the kids were thrilled to see the Strong Children's Museum.

(I don't care how old I am, it's still fun to take your picture on the front stoop at Sesame Street!) 

(Very cool fairy tale/wizarding section.  Not to be missed!)

Today we're off to West Virginia---different family members, new adventures.
Hope you are enjoying all that summer has to offer.
See you when we're home.  :)

KinderGardens 2011, Week Seven

 It's been a busy week around our home.  Aside from watering, we've only done two jobs in the garden.

First on the list this week was helping our potatoes. We planted them in bins like last year.

Last week, my mom came across some research that talked about container gardening with potatoes.  The most interesting bit she told me was that if you keep layering soil as the potatoes grow vertically, then new potatoes will start growing horizontally out of the original stem of the plant---the end result being a larger harvest.

Which I found interesting, because I always thought you hilled potatoes & mulched with straw purely to keep potatoes from turning green.  However, it appears that it makes your potato plant more productive.  (We'll take any increase in productivity that we can get!)

So the project this week was taking a decomposing bale of straw, stuffing it in around the stems of the potato plant, then layering decomposed horse manure on top.

The second job came at the tail end of a rainy day...

It was time to get the yardstick and measure the sunflowers!

We're calling it 21" tall at week seven.

Micah and Dad were reading, so Juli and I set up the graph.

We'll be measuring the height of the sunflowers each week, from week 4 of KinderGardens (when the seeds sprouted) through week 18 (when the kids go back to school).

I know, it's summer vacation.  But I'm a teacher.  We do all kinds of learning things whenever we can!

If this is your first visit, be sure to stop over and visit The Inadvertent Farmer to see what all the other KinderGardeners are up to.

Happy Gardening!

Summer Days

Tuesday was the last day of school.  To celebrate, there was a campfire!  

I just about can't get over how backwoods this looks.  The ripped jeans, the chickens in the yard, the tipped-over composter in the garden, the yellow rope on the sledding hill...I could go on, but you get the point.

Because when I look at that picture, all the imperfect stuff melts away, and I see this.
The smiles.

There was guitar music and a rendition of "Little Bunny Foo Foo".  (We thought of you, Aunt Paula.)

There were s'mores.
There was a late bedtime.

* * * * * * *

The next day, I was checking our calendar, and it hit me that this summer is going to fly by at a tremendous rate.  One of my fears is that we'll get to the day before school starts and someone will begin a sentence like, "Why didn't we..."

Or "I wish we could have..."

Fill in the blanks.  We've all had summers like those, especially as a kid.  You spend day after day, bored out of your skull.  And then it comes---the day before school is to start, and you're thinking of all the things you still want to do before your time runs out.

Regret and I are not friends, so we've planned ahead.
Here is our giant list of all the things we want to do this summer.
Ready?

Swimming
Gardening
Campfires
Idlewild
Library (once a week)
Rollerskating
Camping
Circus
Muskrat Cove
Blue Sox Game (local minor league baseball)
Playground
Picking berries
Picnics
Farm Show
Fishing
Family Reunion in MD
Drive-In to see Cars II

And Juli had her own little list on the side:
Cooking lessons
Sewing lessons
Piano lessons

Todd and I would also like to escape during the week of the 4th of July.  Grandma and Granddad have agreed to keep the kiddos.  We'll be thinking out of the box to plan an inexpensive getaway.  Maybe camping...

I also have a baby up in New York (born in April) that I am dying to see, so the kids and Grandma will accompany me on that drive.

All told, lots to do.
It will require planning and fortitude to make a good-sized dent in that list.
We're up for it.
:)

Here's to the beginning of a wonderful summer!

KinderGardens 2011, Week Six

As noted last week, we needed to thin the sunflowers.  

(When I garden with kids my strategy is to plant as many seeds as we have, since they don't always come up where you think they will.) 

(Did you notice that Micah is sporting a brand-new Lightning McQueen digger?  Courtesy of Grandma, who wanted to buy garden tools for Micah too.)

Thinning was much less traumatic for the kids than for me.  I just feel so bad pulling something after it has sprouted and grown.  It doesn't really feel fair.  

So...I made it a little easier by transplanting the thinned plants to Granddad's garden.  They hadn't yet planted spaghetti squash, so we thinned and moved those too.

I hope they make it.  They wilted very quickly while we moved them.

Granddad's new watering wand to the rescue!

Anyone else watering this week?  I have a feeling that quite a few of us made the jump to summer weather...finally!  (To check up on the other KinderGardeners, hop on over to The Inadvertent Farmer.)

KinderGardens 2011, Week Five

This is the week that we've been waiting for!  The rain clouds have vanished, leaving us with beautiful, sunshiny days.

Can I tell you that we are growing one prolific oregano plant?

So prolific, that it is in the way of where I walk.
We whacked off a good third of it, and got the dehydrator out for the first time this summer.
Nothing like the present to put away some oregano for late summer spagehetti and pizza sauce.

Micah was my first helper.  

"Why the sad face, guy?"

"This stuff smells, Momma!"

He helped take the leaves off one stem of oregano.  It counts.  He helped.

Another day, another helper.

I think Juli's starting to "get" more of the food preservation thing.  

She helped fill the dehydrator with a second batch of oregano.

There will be no pricey $5.00 jars of spices purchased this coming winter!

I can't remember if I've told you about my jar sealer.  Last year, my friends Jake and Julie borrowed my vacuum sealer to see if they'd like their own.  In return, they bought me one of my favorite kitchen toys:  an attachment that allows you to seal a canning lid on a jar---which is perfect for those things that you'd like to seal but aren't actually going to can---like herbs. 

* * * * * * *

Juli's grandma (who lives next door, btw) helped further her excitement about working in the garden.
Her gift?
A perfectly kid-sized, perfectly girly implement set in a carrying case!
Have you ever?

Juli and I spent about half an hour out front yesterday morning, and our reward was getting to see a portulaca bud in her butterfly planter go from closed to all-the-way open.

During our worktime, Juli chose a spot for her mostly-dead perennial that she picked up at Lowe's for $1.50. (She shares my love for mostly-dead plants!)

* * * * * * * 

Our mammoth sunflowers are doing well.  They were three inches tall when Micah and I measured them on Thursday.  This week, we'll have our first lesson on thinning...

Spaghetti squash plants are up and showing their first true leaves.

It's that time---the strawberries are beginning to ripen.  Although I hated to surround them with all that black plastic, they have really thrived.  Now begins the nightly task of pulling the row cover over the rosy-colored berries, in an effort to keep opportunistic bunnies and groundhogs at bay.

They've also started to send their runners, so this week's job will be cutting another row of holes and "encouraging" the runners to land in those precise spots.  (I seem to remember a magazine article about using hairpins to get runners to root where you want them to.  We'll try it.)

* * * * * * *

If you're not a regular over at The Inadvertent Farmer, you'll want to check out the links to the KinderGarden posts.  There are more small gardeners linking up every week!

In the meantime, have fun playing in the dirt.  :)

Sweetness of the Season

Two years ago, my friend Christy unveiled her strawberry plan:  to buy as many organic strawberries as the boys could eat for the three weeks that they were in season.  Then she would wait to purchase strawberries until the next year, as opposed to purchasing berries in the store that were conventionally grown and trucked in from CA or FL.  She was going to eat simply and in season.  As strawberries were my daughter's #1 favorite fruit, I didn't think I could make that commitment.

(Image from www.ccof.org.)

Fast forward to today.  Although I haven't made quite the commitment that Christy has, I have made the commitment to grow/buy them organically, and that means we only eat fresh strawberries from May through August.  (If you're wondering why organic strawberries are such a big deal, visit the Enviroblog on organophosphates and recent studies on their impact on children's behavior and learning.) 

(On a side note, I used to be very happy to drive down the road to a local farm to pick my own strawberries.  After my children asked me about the blue pellets scattered among the plants, I decided that I didn't feel okay picking there anymore.)

* * * * *

There's something to be said for going without something.  In our society, we don't have to go without things very often.

This winter, in addition to going without strawberries, we also chose not to buy red or green grapes.  I thought it would be difficult, and at times it was tempting to give in and purchase the grapes imported from Chile.  But we stuck it out.  (Conventionally grown grapes imported from other countries register higher levels of pesticides than grapes grown in the USA.)

Yesterday, I visited the Giant Eagle in Cranberry Township, as I happened to be out that way.  Not only did they have grapes grown in the USA, but their organic grapes were $3.99/lb., the same exact price as the grapes that were grown conventionally.

(Image from www.freshplaza.com.)

Breakfast for me this morning was a bowl of red grapes and bananas, with almonds on the side.  Those grapes were perhaps the best I've ever had. 

Were they really?  Or was it because I hadn't eaten a grape since around Thanksgiving?
Either way, they were delicious.

* * * * *

To learn more about the challenges facing organic farmers and strawberry production, visit http://www.ccof.org/org_resources_ucscstrawberries.php.