Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

I’m so excited! I was determined to get a garden planted this year, and we got it done. Well, at least part of it. We ran out of room, so I’m trying to figure out where to put our onions, but nonetheless, we have a small garden. Yay!

We started our day by reading The Curious Garden by Peter Brown. The kids loved this book, and poured over the illustrations for quite some time.Then, we read about how plants grow, and we were primed and ready to start our own little adventure in gardening.

Unlike my last venture in gardening, this took quite a bit more effort. We had to clean out our much neglected corner flowerbed that used to house a Sago Palm, which is a horrible plant to have in any place where children play. That thing is evil. Even its remnants stabbed me quite a few times when I was cleaning out the bed. Though the plant has been gone since fall, its roots remained, and getting those suckers out was a chore! But after a few blisters, some back breaking work, and some bent back fingernails, I managed to get most [I hope enough] of them out.

While I was cursing the sago, Audrie spent her time creating our garden markers. She used old rocks that we kept digging out of the bed to make them.

When all was said and done, we had a garden fit for a king [at least in our eyes], complete with strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, banana peppers, and soon-to-be onions. We also have some seeds that we are going to experiment with, and if it works, we’ll have green beans, bell peppers and basil as well.

It pales in comparison to the giant gardens I helped tend as a kid, but for us, it’s perfect. And if all goes well, I hope to expand it into our unutilized side yard.

xo

nessa dee