Finally returning to gardening

After an unusually cold winter (which probably isn't done yet), we're finally ready to start gardening again. Will has been involved with a great school garden project and he's really taken an interest in it. We're starting this year with our Earth Box. We love them and think they're great - although my last couple crops have been terrible out of them (probably the gardeners fault, not the plants).

This year, I bought two tomato plants to go in it - a Big Boy and an Early Girl. I specifically bought them so it would be a boy for the boy and a girl for the girl.

Here is the empty Earth Box. It has a new PVC pipe because Tebow ate the last one.


The kids with their plants.


Will planting his little tomato. He really just wants to water it every day with the pvc pipe, but I forgot to take a picture of him doing that.


And, the finished project. We put it right on the porch so that we have to walk by it every time we come out the door. That should help the gardener (me) out some.


And, yes, that is a big fertilizer buggy in the background in case you were wondering. It's in the midst of repair for the farm, but should soon be headed back to the barn. I think it's a little big for my garden.

Container Gardening with Kids

We had our first 4-H meeting of the year this week and invited Tom Wichman to be the guest speaker. He's our state Master Gardener coordinator and always does great presentations with the kids. We did container gardening with dianthus flowers. It was great - the project was easy and the kids got to take home something that was ready to go. If you've got kids at home, container gardening is an easy and immediate project.

Tom's giving an overview of plants here.














One of our older members was a big help showing the younger ones how to plant.














All the kids with their finished container gardens.














Originally, we had wanted to do pineapple plant containers with the kids. Normally, we go to the local grocery store and ask the produce manager to save the tops of the pineapples they cut up. Unfortunately, Dole no longer ships pineapples with tops on them. We tried two other grocery stores, but guess who supplies their pineapples? Dole. So, I guess this means no more pineapple containers for all the classes and 4-H groups who do this. I am going to write a letter to Dole and ask them if there is anyway we can get pineapple tops another way. Kids love this project and it would be a shame to never be able to do it again.