Adventures in Gardening

Philip's big dream for this year was to have a large, productive garden. So, starting last fall, he was out in our side yard hacking away with the pickax. He killed off all the grass that had been there and worked at flattening out the area. We had a colder than usual Spring, but caused some problems early on (read: a bunch of his plants died because we kept having frost...and he did plant a little early because he was so excited.) We then had a snafu called "hungry rabbit syndrome", which involves the local animals coming and eating our baby lettuce, strawberry plants and blueberry leaves. Out of the 18 or so lettuces that were planted, we have one full sized and two partial left. Yikes. 3 out 4 strawberry plants survived...and the blueberries, well we'll see what happens to those! Anyway, things are finally beginning to look like a real garden. Philip spends time out there everyday and the boys enjoy being out there with him, even Andrew.

Daddy's littlest helper

The other helpers. Love the boots...we've gotten our money's worth out of those this year!

The main part of the garden which has: broccoli (in front), romaine lettuce (with vertical wire around), the dark brown spots are pumpkin, watermelon and cantaloupe (L to R), back left corner is butternut squash, cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini. Far Left, not in the picture, is the strawberries. On the far right is the start of the peppers (cayenne, habenero, jalapeno), and the beginning of the tomato section (12 total). We also have two each of cilantro and basil, and a few onions interspersed.

In the middle of the pic, you can see our first zucchini...it's doubling every day! Looks like this will probably be the next thing we can eat. We've already had broccoli twice...yum!

On the left is the right half of the tomotoes, the two balckberry bushes and the two blueberry bushes.

Philip also decided to build a compost bin to make some more nutritious soil to add to the garden. The boys have had a blast with this and love being the ones to dump the scraps into the bin. He just added a lid yesterday, so now they have made it a two person job; one person opens and the other dumps.

Melon rinds heading south

Doesn't that sight just make you hungry?

We're excited to start reaping a harvest as summer passes...although I think we may be inundated with squash and tomatoes! We're hoping all of our different plants will produce...we'll see!