Planting time

I love gardening. We have had a couple gardens in past houses that we've owned. But we have missed having one here at this house. So, after 5 years, we finally built one.

Because our house sits on a nice bed of clay, we opted for some raised beds to garden in.
Isaac helped me construct the bed frames. We made 5 frames: 3- 8'X12' beds, 2- 4'X4' beds. Isaac is pretty handy with the power tools.

I ordered some good garden mix and a couple bales of peat moss.

Then I put the kids to work shoveling and raking, while I pushed the very heavy wheelbarrow full of dirt to the back yard.

We mixed it with the peat moss and the planted our seeds.We started some pumpkins, cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumbers, beets, carrots, radishes, onions, broccoli, jalepeno, bell peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, cilantro, dill, oregano, thyme, basil, chives, and tomatoes. We even squeezed in a few marigolds to protect the tomatoes.

We check every day to see what has popped up and sprouted over night. (The radishes were first, of course). Most of the other seeds have germinated and pushed up through the soil. Kind of waiting on the peppers and broccoli. Anyday now!

This experience has convinced me that I need more opportunities for my children to do manual labor (nothing beats it for convincing a kid that school is the place to be for a good future!) And nothing beats real work to wear the kids out. We all slept well that night.