Friday, October 2, 2009

The Idiot's Guide to Gardening

I'm quite sure that if I head over to Amazon and do a search for "Idiot's Guide" and "fruit and vegetable gardening," I'd find a book (or two or three) that would mention my husband and I by name.

Months and months ago, maybe even a year ago, Scott built two 4x2 foot raised containers so we could do some square foot gardening. Without doing any research about what would grow in our area and when, we set out with the boys and purchased seeds. To keep a short story short, I'll just say that possums, squirrels, our dog, the boys and myself contributed to the garden's demise. Sorry Scott...

After Logan recently decided that some chopped peanuts were really watermelon seeds and was desperate to plant them, did we decide to revive the garden. Once again without any research we set out with the boys and purchased seeds and seedlings. We spent one morning planting basil, peppers, lettuce, cantaloupe, broccoli, carrots, strawberries and a few others. The next day the boys made their own watering cans.

This was an activity I was planning on writing a Summer Survival post about. I'm a couple of months late but here it is:

Homemade watering cans:
This is a project that I like for a couple of reasons...it reuses trash and saves me money because I didn't have to buy new. The watering cans are made from plastic milk jugs. After cleaning them well, you'll need to use a hammer and nail to poke holes in the lids.


Then the kids can get their hands on them to decorate them. We used markers and foam stickers.


Fill them with water and the they are ready to go!

After a little less than two weeks (and some watering help from Papa), this is what our garden now looks like:

10 comments:

  1. Awesome!!!!!! I tried hard to look at the garden, and I somewhat succeeded, but I got lost in the boys' eyes.... I love those boys!!

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  2. yay! look soooooo much better than how mine turned out!

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  3. what a great idea and how fun for the kids. Stunt Man would totally dig this.

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  4. Your kids are adorable. Remember that even when plants die, or don't grow as expected, planting seeds and seedlings remains one of the most life-affirming things we can do.

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  5. Brilliant idea! And your boys are freakin' adorable!

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  6. Have I ever told you how brilliant you are?

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  7. As a master Gardener I a totally available to laugh at you. Er no I'm here to help! Or ask your local cooperative extension service. Good luck and dang you boys are so cute.

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  8. Brilliant!! The boys are so cute too!!

    Have a great Sunday, Carey!!

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  9. You are so clever! I like how it's all divided out and everything. Clearly the boys really enjoy this project!

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  10. If your late season herb and vegetable garden is bountifulyou may want to visit www.AmpleHarvest.org - a site that helps diminish hunger by enabling backyard gardeners to share their crops with neighborhood food pantries.

    The site is free both for the food pantries and the gardeners using it.

    More than 970 food pantries nationwide are already on it and more are signing up daily.

    It includes preferred delivery times, driving instructions to the pantry as well as (in many cases) information about store bought items also needed by the pantry (for after the growing season).

    AmpleHarvest.org enables people to help their community by reaching into their back yard instead of their back pocket.

    Lastly, if your reader's community has a food pantry, they should make sure the pantry registers on www.AmpleHarvest.org. Its free.

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Thanks!