How Does Your Garden Grow?

We have had soooo much rain lately! One of the many reasons I went with a Square Foot Garden in my backyard is that the ground stays too wet after it rains. I'm so glad my garden is able to drain! Right now the back yard is kind of squishy. Still more rain in the forecast this week. The good thing is that I haven't had to water anything! :)

Well my garden has really been growing since I last posted. My bush beans are getting huge, tomatoes are appearing and my squash, cucumbers, pumpkins are growing like weeds!

This is my garden that's just outside my backyard. It is the first time I've planted anything in it. I am so happy that the plants are really thriving! I didn't have time to prepare the soil as I would have liked, but I did manage to add a couple bags of compost. In this garden I have my raspberry starts, 2 pumpkin plants, 2 zuchinni plants, 2 watermelons and 1 acorn squash. I figure they can all go wild growing everywhere. :)

I can't wait until we are able to pick some of our vegges! Like I mentioned before, on my summer to-do list is to learn how to can some of the tomatoes and green beans. My kids enjoy seeing how much the plants have grown since we've first started our garden.

This week my little girls will be doing some activities to go along with Muncha! Muncha! Muncha. (Supplemental books: In the Garden: Who's Been Here? and Vegetable Garden by Douglas Florian.)



Homeschool Share has a whole lapbooking unit based around Muncha! Muncha!Muncha!. We'll be using the printables found there.

There are also some songs, snack ideas and more found on Here.

We'll also be taking some ideas from Totally Tots: Once Upon a Book-Muncha!Muncha!Muncha!

After we do some fun gardening things this week, I hope to bring the kids to our local musuem where they have a World War II canning and Victory Garden display. We saw part of the garden when they first planted it, but I'm sure it is huge now!

So that's on our list for some Big Summer Fun!  Don't forget to link up your summer plans for the past couple of weeks on our Big Summer Fun Blog Hop. I plan to post this weekly through the summer on Mondays.

My Square Foot Garden

This is my second year keeping a Square Foot Garden. The kids and I enjoyed growing and eating things right out of the garden last year, and we're looking forward to this year's harvest too.

Right now I only have 2 boxes. I am always surprised at how much I can plant within that small space though.

We are growing some herbs again: Oregano, Parsley, Basil, Lavender, Rosemary and Garlic chives.

We planted lots of tomatoes: Roma, Brandywine, Sunsugar, Grape tomatoes, Big beefy (or something like that) and some sweet sauce-type tomato. I'm hoping to can some spaghetti sauce this year.

We also have green peppers, bush beans, cucumbers, butternut squash, pumpkin, raspberry starts, and zuchinni. (I also have a plot of dirt where I'm growing some of the vine plants and the raspberry bushes. It's not as fun to garden there because the weeds are so bad!)

So that's the state of garden so far! :) Mama Jen shared a cute activity where she had her kids plan their own garden. I'm planning on having my kids do something similar. Actually, I'll have the older ones make a master chart so we know exactly what is in each square. You can check it out here: The Kid's Garden Plans.

My First Harvest -- Square Foot Garden

Ok, don't laugh at the huge amount of produce in my first harvest, but it's baby steps for me! :) As I wrote before, I just set up my first Square Foot Garden this year. I started out small because I had to see if I could really handle caring for a garden. I have to tell you that I have loved having this garden! All I have to do is water it occasionally. I have had to do hardly any weeding at all! It has been so simple to care for--and so far everything is still living! :)

One green pepper, one cucumber, and a handful of green beans made the most delicious meal---well I did have to supplement a little. I diced up the the green pepper and added it to an omelet with ham and cheese. I sliced the cucumber and sprinkled a little salt for a tasty snack. Then I snapped the beans, cooked them and pureed them for baby food. Not a bad start!

I still have tons of tomatoes growing, couple eggplant, more green peppers, red peppers, Serrano peppers, cucumbers, and squash. I have no idea what I'll do with it once it's ready---but it sure has been fun growing things from scratch! (Can you tell I grew up in the city!) I think the next skill I'll be learning is canning...

My Square Foot Garden

I was introduced to the concept of Square Foot Gardening last year and thought that if I would garden, that would be the way to go. I never got around to getting my garden started last year due to adding a new child to our family, but this year I was determined to do it. I am a total garden newbie, but I purchased All New Square Foot Gardening, bought the supplies and actually got it set up! I built (well actually my husband) one 2x8 garden and one 3x8 garden. Normally square foot gardens are 4x4, but I only have a small patch of backyard that gets enough sun for a garden. In order to get as much squares as possible, we went with a rectangular garden. I made sure that it wasn't too wide so that I could still reach the squares in the middle.

I have 4 tomato plants growing. Two of them are heirloom tomato plants (I'm still not quite sure what that means, but I believe that is a good thing---need to do more research) and two are Big Bertha's or something like that. They are suppose to produce big tomatoes for sandwiches. We'll see. I told you I am a garden newbie!

I've planted too many pepper plants. Some are green, some red and some seranno chili peppers.

And for my big experiment---I planted one eggplant. I was thrilled to see the bloom! I have no idea what to do with eggplant other than I like to eat eggplant parmigiana at Olive Garden.

I also have some cucumbers, squash, green beans, basil, thyme, taragon, and parsley planted too. If all goes well this year, then I plan to build 3 more 4x4 boxes. I'm so pleased with the results so far :)