Gardening

It's that time again!!  Spring is such a busy time around here.  The weather warms up and it's all I can do to make the kids finish their school before heading out to play.

The girls and I planted about 30 tomato and 25 various pepper plants within the last few weeks.  To that we've added green beans, zucchini, acorn and butternut squash, cukes, pumpkins, watermelon (which I can never get to grow right), cantalope, tomatillos (a mexican tomato), cilantro, basil, a new strawberry patch, a couple new grapevines, a raspberry bush (more like a stick right now), and a blackberry "stick" bush.  Nice, huh?  Yes, we have been VERY busy.  I need to put on a current picture.  The garden looks beautiful.  All plants and no weeds (til the hot weather hits).  We lined it with haybales in hopes of eventually building up some really good, healthy soil.  I've heard that you can plant things in the hay bales and they'll receive adequate nutrition, so I'm trying it.  I have tomatoes, peppers and a couple tomatillo plants in them. I guess the only thing different is that the haybales tend to dry out faster than the ground, so I need to make sure to keep them watered regularly.  

My three girls helping plant the tomatoes.

Caleb, Seth and Noah each have their own garden this year.  They cleared the weeds from a patch of land and got to plant whatever they wanted in their patch.  Caleb is working on  a 200 pound pumpkin.  He feeds it milky water almost daily.  Noah has an assortment of plants.  A sunflower, a couple green beans, a pumpkin plant, a few cucumbers, and a marigold.  Seth has, well, nothing... except for the grapevine that I planted in his patch yesterday.  He worked hard to pull the weeds and overturn the dirts, so maybe he's just taking his time to plan??  One thing's for sure, if he doesn't get it planted, he'll be harvesting nothing but weeds pretty soon.