So far so good people! It has been 5 1/2 months since I set the goal to play outside everyday, even if it was only for a few minutes.
Lately our outdoor play seems to be totally wrapped up in our garden. The girls are just obsessed with watering and helping me out with all of the different gardens and projects we have going on.
The flower pots (15 pots in all!) they helped me plant weeks ago are exploding in color and life.
And then there is the tree that we trans-planted on Mother's Day. It lots all of its leaves but with lots of watering and some additional compost added to the soil it seems to be coming back! Do you see all those new green leaves?!
Then there is the pumpkin patch.
With lots of new pumpkin plants popping up all the time from the pumpkins from last year that we buried and a few additional seeds that we planted this spring.
And our strawberry patch! We aren't really harvesting many berries this year. I was told from many people to try and pick off as many flowers this year as we could to really make sure the plants take root and spread successfully so that we can have a big crop next year!
We also did not realize just how important putting a net over the berries would be! Any berries that we thought we might get to eat the birds have beaten us to them. Bummer.
Then there are, what I am calling, the compost tomatoes! These tomato plants sprang up all on their own out of our compost pile. Why plant annual flowers there when nature clearly wants me to grow more tomatoes?
And finally we have the actual vegetable garden!
With lettuce, basil, cilantro, broccoli, ground cherries, tomatoes, two kinds of beans, garlic, onions and carrots this is my favorite spot. And the girls love to help me water. With the fence to keep out the neighbor's dogs they can't really help me weed here but we will take down the fence or lift them up to get in when it is time to harvest. For now the watering is enough to keep them pretty busy!
So, all those spaces and small kid-friendly watering cans means hours of watering fun. They have learned to work the rain barrel spigots themselves and just have a blast running around making sure everything gets a good drink!
How much do your kids help out in the garden?
wish they were here to help me water! Our beans, carrots, beats, corn, tomatoes, gourds and pumpkins are all up.
Posted by: mom kuhn | 06/13/2012 at 07:40 PM
My son loves watering our garden too - almost too much! He loves to soak all the flowers and cries when I turn off the hose. He's pretty good about not picking the flowers but I think I'm confusing him now that we can harvest some of our vegetables. I tell him he can pick a tomato and he looks at me like "Are you sure?" He doesn't quite understand why sometimes he can pick and other times he can't but he is only 2.
Posted by: Melanie @ Raise a Boy | 06/13/2012 at 08:29 PM
Oh this is inspiring!!!! Our gardening season is from anytime except summer! I'm in the midst of preparing our soil. The boys love to dig with me and we are looking forward to trying our hand at gardening again in September when our temperatures aren't so scorching. Thanks for linking up!
Posted by: Heather | 06/14/2012 at 03:06 PM