Garden

Here's my harvest this morning from the garden.  I only pulled a couple carrots and an onion to use in the next couple days.  I haven't gotten out in awhile to pick the pickling cucumbers.... and it shows.  Some of them are a little big.  I wanted to pickle whole ones this year instead of cutting them down, but I think some of them are too big to share a jar.  I guess I'll have to slice those.  Any other ideas of what to do with them?  Also, anybody have a great dill, sweet, or B&B pickle recipe?  I'm looking forward to canning in the next few days!! 

Cold Crops

Today I planted the cold crops - ones that can be planted as soon as the soil can be worked but before last frost. That meant getting out the tiller, preparing the soil (sidenote: Madelyn surprised me with this word today. She says she learned it on "Sid the Science Kid". Love that show.), mark the rows, plant the seeds (carrots, onions, spinach, pea, and broccoli), and then water. It was a couple hours worth of work but I loved every minute of it! I love gardening... I can't wait until mid-May when I can get everything in the ground!

I did get the strawberry plants planted earlier this week (not pictured). They seem so tiny now but from what I hear, next year and every year after I will be fighting to keep them contained! All I know is that I am looking forward to home-grown strawberries!

Today's Science Lesson

Ever trace your shadow and then go back later to see how your shadow has changed? We did that today and the kids thought it was neat. The sun has been bright and beautiful the last couple of days. So much so that Greyson got a little pink on his head yesterday and Madelyn got some sun on her legs today. Looks like the sunblock needs to be entered back into our daily routine.

While we were waiting for the sun to move, Madelyn was playing a mean game of hopscotch. It so nice to have another "room" to play in!

I was also excited to get started on the strawberry patch today. I tilled it up to get it ready for planting, hopefully tomorrow or Sunday. I know that we won't get any strawberries this year but they will ready to go for next year! Yea!!

"Stay Up Day"

Madelyn has ALWAYS been an amazing napper. Heavy, long, restful naps. At 4 years old, she still takes 2-3 hour naps every day... that is until a couple of weeks ago. She was having trouble sleeping every day and I decided that maybe it was time to start weaning the naps. Most likely she will be going to every day, all day kindergarten next year and she isn't going to be able to get the same amount or quality nap in there! I guess it is time. So, she and I made a deal - she can have "stay up day" on Tuesday and Thursday and all the other days are still nap days. She happily agreed! Well, today I gave her the choice to stay up or go take a nap. Of course, she said she wanted to stay up but before I knew it she was "resting" on the couch (her words). Then while I left the room to go do something, I came back to her sleeping. I didn't mind. In fact, I applaud her for laying down when she was tired and getting some shut-eye (about 2 hours of it!). It was funny when she woke up though. She informed me, "No, mama, I was not asleep! I know because I had my eyes open!" Oh, really!

And I came across this picture of when Madelyn and I were planting our seedlings for this year's garden. She did a great job helping me get the soil moistened, filling the pots, and then adding the seeds. She loved it too. I hope that she'll love pulling the weeds too!

Too much isn't always bad

Last year was our first year to pre-plant seeds for our garden. We pre-planted tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, and basil. However, I made a mistake.... when it came time for planting, so many seedlings had done so well and I couldn't throw them away! So I planted them ALL and I planted too many! But we had a beautiful and abundant garden!

Matter of fact, in some things it was so abundant, that we couldn't even get rid of it fast enough! We planted NINE zucchini plants and was giving them to neighbors and friends, even our postman (who said "how do you make this?") We planted 7 jalapeno plants. However, this was mostly Ben's doing - for some reason he thought we would only get a handful of them off each plant.... we instead picked close to SIX HUNDRED by the end of the summer!

This year we will try to be a little more careful. However, we may still overplant a little... I've found that taking your extra zucchini or cucumbers to a neighbor's house can be a nice excuse to say hello.

Here's the start to our Garden of 2009....