Watching the garden grow

W picks a ripe tomato

This has been an experiment year in our garden, with some successes and some failures, but overall it was a fun experience. The tomatoes have done quite well, and that was our main "money crop" that we were depending on so we were pretty happy about that. A big surprise was how much lettuce we got. We used this method which helped the lettuce grow back for several cuttings. It was especially delicious as baby lettuce. W planted seeds so we were not sure how much would actually sprout, and beyond that we had seen a deer in our yard shortly before planting so I had been afraid they would find our little garden again. 

The crops that did poorly this year included swiss chard (which may have been watered too much in the raised bed), and sadly, the pumpkin patch which has blossomed several times but seems sickly. The pepper plants and eggplant also produced nothing. I think maybe spacing them out a bit more and planting earlier next year would help. We got a couple of jalapenos, but no sweet peppers. So the bulk of our harvest has been lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, and a variety of herbs (lemon thyme, basil, oregano, and rosemary). Next year I hope we will plant the herb garden on the upper yard. 

Jumping into First Grade

Our first day of first grade in our homeschool was an unusual one yesterday. We had lost power from Tropical Storm Irene passing through, but luckily our family was safe and our house was unharmed so we were extremely lucky to only experience a temporary power outage. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the folks in our neighboring state of Vermont and to all those across the east coast affected by the storm.

the crafty little chipmunk 

Without the lights on, W made a list of all the things we use daily that need power to run. It was quite a long list! Certainly it was an interesting project to relate to the “olden times” we are studying in Story of the World. W & C had a fun day with a lot of outside play time in the garden and on the swing set. W began a nature journal as well and observed a chipmunk up close. Those critters are pretty used to hearing the boys play. This I believe is the same chipmunk that I saw trying to roll an apple into a chipmunk hole. The crafty little guy was outfooled by the apple, which did not fit. Today we observed the same apple half eaten with numerous bite marks left by a certain chipmunk which probably had a tummy ache today.

We are getting back in the swing of Math U See Alpha & Five in a Row as well as introducing new elements to our learning materials such as The Story of the World. W mentioned to me that maybe we shouldn’t have stopped lessons for writing & math over the summer so it may be something to keep in mind for next summer. This summer was more of a “read a lot, work on some projects, and do workbooks when you want” approach. He is having difficulties with writing lower case letters so this year he will work on that and we will also be getting C better acquainted with the alphabet as well.

W picked a carrot for snack time.

Today the power is back on and we did some sit down lessons before lunch and then were outside for a few hours. C is now napping and W is playing. Earlier we looked at web sites about butterflies and hummingbirds to identify those we saw outside and learn a bit more about them. When reading about flowers that draw hummingbirds, W recognized Lupine as the flower featured in this weeks' Five in a Row book Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. (That book deserves its' own post! One of my favorites so far out of the world of five in a row.) Sadly we will have to take the hummingbird feeder down once the fall settles in, as we learned the ones we see now are probably just migrating south, but hopefully they will remember our house and be back in the spring.

Watching the Garden Grow

It's been a while since a garden update, but a lot has changed in the past few weeks. We just took a long weekend trip up to the White Mountains so we were pleasantly surprised that no animals had eaten the fruits of our labor so far. I had spotted a deer shortly before we planted the garden and we have also seen our local wild turkey family checking out the pumpkin patch. As long as they stick to eating ticks and bugs they're cool with us. 

Oh, hai turkeys.

July 1st.. lettuce and carrots beginning to pop up.

and July 10th.. as you can see we need to do some thinning out, but the lettuce is starting to look edible and the carrots are pretty hearty now. We also have seen several blossoms on the squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and pepper plants. The eggplant hasn't changed much since planting. The herbs are thriving and we had fresh basil on our tomato & mozzarella sandwiches last night.

I see baby lettuce salad on the menu in the near future.

A cute cucumber flower.

Yay, tomato!

Our Garden 2011

Garden beds! Excuse the camera phone photo.

Saturday was a fun day spent at a local farmer's market, strawberry picking, and errands ending with some ice cream. We also worked for a while on the garden beds and bought some plants. Last week we rowed Paddington's Garden by Michael Bond, which was sort of appropriate as we made rock lined garden beds. After church on Father's Day Jacob went to work on our garden, and then on the last minute idea of a pumpkin patch in back. In one bed we planted tomato plants, pepper plants, eggplant, acorn squash & herbs. In the other raised bed W helped plant carrot seeds, lettuce seeds, and cucumber plants. I may move around the herbs to their own area once we see what works, but we have heard it may help dissuade the deer and other animals from eating the blossoms on the vegetable plants. 

We are getting a pretty late start this year due to weather, and it took a lot of hard work on Jacob's part to make the rock lined raised beds. Jacob would also like to add another raised bed or two and extend the garden back, eventually even putting a bench in that area, and fencing in the yard. So for now we will see what works, but this is a big experiment. Jacob used some of his leftover container gardening filler, a mix of vermiculite, manure, and peat moss. See last year's post for more about container gardening. He also made a few trips to the store to get enough materials to fill the two beds.

Our local family of turkeys made a cameo appearance yesterday as well, and Jacob got to see all the little ones which were MUCH bigger, and actually flying up to the trees to roost. This time it appeared that the Daddy turkey was there too. 

More (better) garden photos coming soon and of course updates to see what's growing! :) As you can see the yard is very filled out with hostas, ferns, and lilies. I am hoping to thin these out a bit. One of the next yard projects will be  shuffling a few plants to new locations. I planted a couple of flowers in the yard, and they add a nice splash of color.

  

Container Gardening

On Saturday, we started adding a mix of potting soil to self watering garden containers that Jacob made from old storage containers. The potting mix is comprised of peat moss, compost, and vermiculite. You can find out more about the making of the containers on Jacob's blog to see how to put those together. We live in a condo, so although the sunlight is limited in our small yard, the containers should work well. On a recent trip to Lowe's, W picked out a kid shovel which we actually found really handy. Both the boys had a lot of fun spending so much of the day outside and helping with the gardening project.

We read Compost Stew: an A-Z Recipe for the Earth by Mary McKenna Siddals earlier in the week which was a fun complimentary book to read when planning a garden with young kids. It can be read in a sing song manner which even little ones can appreciate. Jacob recently started a compost bin although it will take a few more months for our compost to be ready.

Mixing the vermiculite into the compost. You may want to keep in mind that using face masks might be handy if it is very windy and you are working with a lot of peat moss and vermiculite.

C getting in on the action filling the containers.

We are hoping to grow lettuces, tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. This year is an experiment, since we do not have very much first hand gardening experience so as a family we are learning as we go. It will also be a wonderful homeschool project, as we are starting from seed so W can learn about the process each step of the way.  We will post about our successes and failures here in the near future. I am also planting several herbs which grow pretty easily on our deck.

W found a little caterpillar while playing, and decided to put him on a nice green leaf. This is big progress for the young man who sometimes gets freaked out by bugs like his Mom. :) 

Little April Showers

We are beginning to plant some seeds and plan on using this weekend to work on our yard and square foot gardening system that Jacob put together. On our Aerogarden there are currently around 17 tomatoes of various sizes so I am looking forward to our early crop. This picture was taken last week and my how they have grown since then, although all the tomatoes are still green and our niece calls them pumpkins.

Reading List!
Here are some spring time favorite books appropriate for April. These should all be available at your local public library.

• The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss, Illustrations by Crockett Johnson
• Bunny's Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown, Illustrations by Lisa McCue
• Little Quack's New Friend by Lauren Thompson, Illustrations by Derek Anderson
• Good Night New York City by Adam / Veno, Illustrations by Joe Gamble

It was a sad day when I noticed Bunny's Noisy Book had gone out of print, although you can still find reasonably priced used copies on Amazon. I had wanted to gift it at a baby shower, it is filled with beautiful prose (what else would you expect from Margaret Wise Brown?) and the illustrations by McCue are really lovely. It was a book I picked up for my eldest son on a whim and I am so glad I did, even when he grows up  I plan on keeping it in our "library". Another favorite of our family is the Little Quack series, and Derek Anderson also illustrated the classic The Potty Train, which was helpful to our oldest a couple years ago. Mr. Anderson has an excellent web site, check it out.

We are also planning on reading books about NYC because we will be taking a little trip there in a couple of weeks. If anyone has any recommendations for New York City themed books let us know by next week so I have time to get to the library for them! We plan on visiting Central Park and the American Museum of Natural History. Photos to come on Little Men after our adventure.