Springtime planting Weekly Wrap-Up May 3-May8

Year after year we try to do some fun gardening project with the kids. 

(Luke, cultivating with the claw end of a hammer. You make do with what you have on hand)

Year after year the bunnies eat all the sprouts!!

Danny investigated at Lowes to find the proper needed "ingredients"for a bean pole teepee.  

Here he is tying the four poles together at the top.

We then wrapped the poles with twine so the beans (and morning glories) have something to grab hold of.

Kimberly also became an expert in wrapping twinw tightly around the poles.

The kids had fun finding worms...

Getting the ground ready with Luke, Kim and Laura.

Luke's just plain likes this tool.

Digging a little deeper and planting the pole bean and morning glory seeds. (we hope to add a little bright color to our tee pee with the flowers.)

All finished!--Minus the fencing.

8 days later the rabbit fence is up....

and so are the bean and morning glory sprouts.

Mark worked very hard, digging up this very hard dirt.  Kim it getting the ground ready for the sunflower seeds.

Poor Luke, he hasn't been feeling well today...I thought helping us would pep him up(especially because he has been looking forward for planting day...It only worked for a few minutes and then he returned to the couch.

 Luke getting the soil ready

Little, little seeds, I really hope we have great results this year.

planting

You can do it little seeds...

The final watering for today of the seeds....it has been dry for so long, we are watering everything two times a day.

Hopefull the rabbit wire will give a good results and protect our tender sprouts

We did have great results in 2007__I think we due to success!

May--Kiwi Crate

The month of May's Kiwi Crate has been a big hit around here.

Farm Fun is the topic...and Kim and Luke just love growing anything.

I was very pleased with the little "garden" the kids put together.

The provided radish and grass seeds began to sprout the day after planted which was a big plus for children with little patience.

There is a chart to draw the progress of the seedlings.

We have also planted a sunflower house and two flower pots full of beans.

The farm animal finger puppets are very cute.

Kim made these with zero help from me.

In honor of our gardening, we read aloud:

Miss Rumphius

The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds

How Flowers Grow

Planting our  beans

Luke planting the sunflower house.

Day 10- we have pumpkin and sunflower sprouts!!

10 days ago Kimberly carefully planted her sunflower seeds into the ground. She has been taking very good care of them.
On day 8, we had several sprouts. I love this one still wearing her sunflower seed hat.

Day 10---something has eaten about half of the newly sprouted sunflower seeds, so now, hopefully, we will end up with a "sunflower wall"

Mark's hard work has also paid off!!

He has two hills of absolutely gorgeous tiny pumpkin plants. ( Our goal is to get one pie pumpkin out of our first pumpkin planting experience---keep your finger crossed.)

Stayed tuned for exciting updates as the days roll on into summer.

Sunflower House-by Eve Bunting

One of our most favorite spingtime books is Sunflower House by Eve Bunting.
We didn't make a sunflower house last year, but I was determined to get one planted this year, and this evening, with Daddy's help we got the job done.

We have a nice rectangular planting area this year, thanks Dad!

Kimmy needed to plant three seeds because she is three. She decided that she wanted to plant more after she realized what fun it was to "garden".

We found this wonderful beetle as we got the ground ready for planting. It is a beetle that I am having a hard time identifying (Uncle Steve-can you help us?). It has neat pincers or something like that on it's head. (Usually our beetles are just "plain headed")

"First the farmer sows the seed,

then she stands and takes her ease.

Stamps her foot and claps her hands,

And turns around to view her land"

Farmer Luke working hard.

Mark planting

and digging little holes--YES, he is using a soup spoon to dig with---we are not normally "farmers".

Mark got the ground ready for 2 hills of pie pumpkin seeds. If only we can grow one pumpkin, it will be a great success.

The moon was out while we planted. Maybe that is good luck!!

The Sunflowers Have Bloomed!

I was almost ready to give up on our sunflowers. They have been growing beautifully, and growing and growing and growing.

I believe I planted the sunflowers that belong in the story-Jack and the Giant Sunflower Stalk,

but now, we have blossoms on our 13 feet tall sunflower plants.

Now, here is our wonderful hide-out. Mark and Grace are peeking out the back.

I don't believe we will ever be able to out do this first attempt at the perfect sunflower house.

A Busy Saturday

It is the weekend so we headed to a party today. We attended a family reunion this afternoon and saw a lot of family that we don't see often enough.
Before we headed out I made Matt, along with Mark, pose with the sunflower house. I want you to notice the morning glories blossoming so nicely among the sunflowers. I am very pleased about this because after I planted them, I read the seed packet. It stated to soak the seeds for 24 hours before planting. I left out this step, so I am pleasantly surprised at the great results in spite of my lack of direction reading.

I didn't take pictures at the reunion as many people were snapping away and I was watching a lot of children, but after the picnic at Grandma and Grandpa's house I took this cute picture of cousins enjoying a video game.

This evening Laura got Kim to do something that we have been trying to get her to do for quite some time----WINK----on demand. Laura also took this wonderful photo of her showing off her new talent.

We ended the evening lying of a blanket in the backyard watching the Perseid Meteor shower. The peak is tomorrow night right before dawn when they expect 60 meteors an hour, but we did see three big meteors shoot across the sky with their tails blazing. We also saw many smaller streaks.
It was spectacular!!