We decided to try a little different gardening plan in our backyard. I am loving all the advantages of it.
Here is where I got the basics of my plan. According to him, I'm not really doing square foot gardening because I didn't section off my boxes into square feet. But, otherwise its the same idea.
I'm trying out a few new to me vegetables this year: kohlrabi, parsnips, fennel and several other herbs. I'm trying broccoli, brussel spouts, and turnips again, which I haven't had super success with before. We also have beans, carrots, peas, snap peas, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, peppers, onions, garlic, and beets in the boxes. I also put in 5 different kinds of flowers into the boxes, which are starting to grace our table now. I told the kids that the nasturtium flowers are edible, so they ate them out of the vase which seemed fun at the time. Now, they want to eat all the flowers. Whoops, I guess that wasn't such a good idea after all.
These were taken a couple of weeks ago, I can't believe how much everything has grown since then. The cucumbers and squash are up to the top of the verticals now. We've had our first 2 cucumber now! The zucchini are taking over the corner and the tomatoes are huge!
This is my herb box. I am loving the basil and parsley and have discovered yummy pesto. The cilantro is not getting used as well, since the kids really don't eat anything I put it in. The marjoram is being used for the lamb that we've been eating lately. The dill made the best broccoli soup the other day. The lemon balm makes incredible tea. I haven't been using the fennel yet. I made the mistake of planting dill and fennel next to each other. I read last week that I may have dilly-fennel and fennely-dill since they are closely related. I have never had such good success with my herbs. I really think it's the light soil mix that we used in the boxes, plus it's very weed free. Other years it seems like weeds took over before the herb seeds ever germinated.
The kids are a really fun age this year to enjoy gardening. Kellen is always wanting his own plants now. Here he is with the flower Grandma bought him at the farmer's market.
They both like to help with watering. Lanelle especially will stay at it forever and I have to pay attention or things get overwatered. Here she's watering my mint, which I've enjoyed in meat and in tea.
I'll have to remember to take pictures again soon and document the progress.
Sue is so knowledge about flowers and plants, it was so fun to pay a little more attention to what's around us.
Kellen and Lanelle were such good hikers, I was really impressed with how well they did and how much they enjoyed it. Kellen wanted to show me how high he could jump - fun action shot, eh?
Taking a closer look!
Taking a snack break at the top of the hill. They were starting to get tired...
Refreshing to cross the creek at the end...
It was hard to get pictures in the dark barn. Lanelle learned to be gentle with the eggs after throwing the first one in the basket.
The kids got to help wash the eggs and candle them to check for cracks. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of the beautiful brunch. Sitting on the patio shaded by the gorgeous old stone house around the beautifully set tables was so fun!
Pretty fun to poach super fresh eggs for breakfast this morning! The kids thought it was pretty cool that they had gathered them and washed them.
"Where are you guys?"
"We're in here, Lanelle!"
At first Lanelle, was offering me some of hers. After awhile, she came with a purple mouth asking for some of mine.
"Look at all my berries, Mom!"
Lanelle picked some.
But, had none to bring home.
I LOVE this one. Purple hands!
Sheena invited us to come over for some Saskatoon pancakes, yummy!