Cute Garden Stakes

Our vegetable garden is finished, and while some of the plants are looking alarmingly limp and yellow, others seem to be thriving. Regardless, the girls and I are finding gardening to be great fun, and we decorated our garden yesterday with these adorable garden stakes.

We found the blank plastic stakes for cheap at our local hardware store. I drew simple vegetable shapes on construction paper which E helped to cut out and A helped to glue on with mod podge. When the glue dried, I gave the labels a good coating of clear gloss spray paint.

I love how colorful and hopeful they look out there: the promise of a bountiful harvest... so long as I can keep the plants alive!


The Surprise Gardenby Zoe Hall

I've come to love Zoe Hall and Shari Halpern (illustrator) for preschoolers. Their books are simple, fun, and so engaging for little ones. Together they have written several books, all of which explain something about nature to small children.

In The Surprise Garden three children plant different "mystery" seeds in their garden and wait to see what grows. They sort and plant their seeds and mark each type with a different colored stake. Then they carefully water and tend their garden, watching the various plants sprout and grow. In the end they have an amazing harvest of fruits and vegetables: all gorgeously illustrated in Halpern's cut-paper collages. 

On this Mother's Day...

I am so grateful for these two little girls who made me a mother, and for my own mother who I still rely on daily for encouragement, guidance, and wisdom. On this Mother's Day I'm giving myself full leave to be sentimental: I'm going out to pull out those baby albums, grab my kids close, and read them On the Night You Were Born. And if I start to cry, everyone will just have to forgive me! I can't help it that I feel so blessed.

How to square foot garden

I have wanted a vegetable garden for years and in our new, sunny yard it's finally a possibility! Last weekend I roped my husband and father-in-law into building me a square foot garden.

Square foot gardening is becoming a popular way to grow vegetables and herbs in your own backyard. The technique uses raised beds laid out in squares to grow the plants in a small amount of space and with relatively little work. For a 4'x4' bed, all you need are two 10x2x8' untreated wood boards cut in half, four metal corner pieces to help reinforce the corners, nails, twine, and 8 bags of miracle grow soil.

Grab your favorite helpers and drill your box together using screws and those metal corner thingys. Pick out a nice sunny spot in your yard and dig up the grass, or in our case weeds masquerading as a lawn. We laid cardboard down as added protection against weeds. Then fill your box! (Or get your hubby to do it.)

Now you need to mark off your square foot sections. Drill a screw or hammer a nail into the boards at one foot intervals. Then run your twine between the nails to create a grid.

You will be assigning plants to the different squares. Doesn't it look so neat and tidy? It brings joy to my order-loving soul. :)

Now, plant! Of course we had to start with E's peanut seedling, a recent school project. I have my doubts as to the success of her endeavor, but hopefully the tomatoes, squash, and basil my friend Michelle started for me will produce a delicious harvest... right outside my kitchen!

For more information on square foot gardening, you can check out the official handbook All New Square Foot Gardening.


My Garden by Kevin Henkes

Did you catch this book when it came out last spring? I admit I did not. But I'm so glad I finally got my hands on a copy. The writing is beautiful. Kevin Henkes is a master, of course, but this has to be one of my favorites.

Written in first-person a little girl explains what her perfect garden would look like. The flowers would change colors, the bunnies would be chocolate, and anything you planted would grow. In a flight of imaginative fancy, the child takes us into her garden and we all wish we could join her in the fun!