How Does Your Garden Grow- Food Garden

Everything is green and the days are getting longer.  And although that creates a bit of havoc on bedtime, it is so nice to feel the warm sun on our faces as we play outside or to open the windows and let the breezes and fresh air into a house that now seems closed up for too long.

We built our garden bed on Saturday and planted on Sunday.  Our backyard consists of clay and rocks, so a raised garden bed is definitely the better choice.  We put it all together using 4x4x6’s and 6 inch wood screws.  Then Arnie proceeded to move 5 yards of dirt into the garden, while I raked it through and evened it out.  The boys played in the dirt- digging in it, moving it, crawling all over it.  We had a wonderfully exhausting day outside.  Sunday we planted.  We managed to get quite a bit in a 12x12 space.  We planted 3 kinds of tomatoes, squash, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, green beans, beets, jalapeños and green peppers along with basil and oregano.  The beets, green beans and cantaloupe we are starting from seed, while the rest are organic transplants from a local nursery.

Hayden is thrilled with it.  His face lights up when he talks about our vegetables, as if the plants are his friends.  And since we’ve been reading Peter Rabbit, he of course talks about how Asia might have to keep the bunnies away so they don’t steal our vegetables.  Yesterday he asked if our seeds had come up yet.  I wish I’d planted something that sprouted a bit sooner so he would be rewarded earlier, but everything is 10-21 days, so he will have to wait.  We had a much smaller garden in Memphis, but he was too young to really take part in it.  This year it will be wonderful to watch him make the connection between the earth and our food.  I, like Hayden, do hope our visiting bunny friends from last year don’t take too much a liking to our garden.

Spring has sprung and while I’m very behind in my house cleaning, it has been wonderful to just let go and spend time outside with the boys.  This Saturday will be a different story, as I’m planning to try out some freezer cooking.  I plan to cook or put together 14 meals for the freezer.  It’s a bit intimidating, but the benefits if it works will be completely worth it.

The rest of the week will be filled with coloring eggs, making an Easter tree and focusing on why we celebrate the holiday.

How Does Your Garden Grow? Front Yard

Our front flower beds needed mulching, badly.  So this weekend we planned a “garden day” for Saturday.  It was a wonderful day.  Don’t get me wrong, it was work.  We trimmed bushes, weeded, spread mulch and more.  Arnie is still sore from shoveling, wheeling and dumping mulch.  But really Hayden made a day of work into a day of fun.  He had a blast following Daddy around with his little wheelbarrow full of mulch and dumping it just where he thought we needed it.  He dragged around the rake, jumped in the leaves, “helped” us prune bushes, plant flower bulbs, pretended to be a frog and entertained Baby Mason. 

He chattered away and the things that came out of his mouth just melted your heart and made you want to sing.  Just a few of my favorites…

“You’re a good cutter Daddy.”  When Arnie was pruning several of our large grassy-bush things.

“I love mulch!”  Of course, he loved carting it around, throwing it, climbing on the mulch pile… you get the idea.

“Garden Day is a great day.”  Randomly said, throughout the entire day.

Its truly amazing what being outside in the fresh air and doing something productive can do.  Hayden, at 3 years old, has such pride in those flower beds now.  We pull out of the driveway or go outside and he talks about how “we did that” and that it “was fun” and “garden day is a good day”. 

I can hardly wait until spring when the daffodils, tulips and buttercups start to push up through the dirt and mulch and point out to Hayden how the work of that one garden day brought beauty all the way into the spring.